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Dull

Kosovo’s election this coming Sunday has garnered virtually no ink (or electrons) in the United States.  This is mainly due to the many other issues Americans are wrestling with.  There is a long list of international issues before we even get close to the Balkans:  withdrawal from Afghanistan, nuclear negotiations with Iran, failure of Middle East peace talks, Chinese naval challenges to US allies, the Syrian war and its spillover, Libya’s implosion, restoration of military autocracy in Egypt.  Even within the Balkans, Bosnia’s stagnation would outrank any problem Kosovo is currently posing.

But inattention to Kosovo’s election is also merited:  Kosovo is becoming a normal country.  Why should Americans care who gets elected?  Four major Albanian parties are contesting the election.  Serbs and other minorities will participate, running for 10 guaranteed seats and hoping for a few more.  The electoral mechanism, whose integrity was compromised in a number of places during the last poll, is thought to be in better shape.  At their municipal elections last fall, the citizens turned out a lot of incumbents.  It is unclear whether that will happen again.  To me, not knowing the outcome of an election in advance is a good sign.

The big issue these days in Kosovo is creation of its armed forces, which will require a two-thirds majority in parliament.  This gives the Serbs, who generally oppose Kosovo acquiring an army, a strong incentive to vote.  They are unlikely to be able to block the constitutional changes required, but they could influence them.  So could Belgrade:  if it were to recognize Kosovo, or at least allow it to become a UN member, Pristina could settle for a smaller force less focused on the threat from Serbia, which has to be taken seriously so long as Belgrade has not recognized Kosovo’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

I don’t mean to say everything is hunky dory in Kosovo, or likely to become so any time soon.  The economy is far from generating enough jobs for its young and growing population.  Poverty and youth unemployment are high.  Corruption is widely thought to be rife.  Nepotism and cronyism are common.  Inter-ethnic relations, though much improved since the war ended in 1999, are far from warm.  Many Kosovo Serbs still do not accept the fact of Kosovo’s independence.  Many Albanians see Serbs as disloyal to the now six-year-old state.  Implementation of the agreements intended to reintegrate the four northern, Serb-controlled municipalities with the rest of Kosovo is lagging.

This is what relative success looks like in international interventions and statebuilding.  Perfection is far off.  Differences are settled by political rather than military means.  Responding to the needs of citizens becomes a priority, even if one observed more in the breach.  To see relative failure, you need only look as far as Bosnia and Herzegovina, where its multiple governments have failed utterly to meet the serious challenge of its recent floods. Serbia, whose governments are well-established if not well-resourced, has also had difficulty with the response and relief effort.  Kosovo was fortunate.  The rains didn’t hit as hard there.

The question Kosovo citizens should be asking themselves as they go to the polls is who can ensure that their state will respond well if catastrophic floods, or a big earthquake, or an epidemic, were to strike?  Who will increase accountability and transparency?  Who will crack down on corruption and nepotism?  Who will enable the economy to generate more jobs?  Those are not a heroic questions.  Some might even consider them dull ones.  They won’t much interest Americans, but I hope they still interest Kosovo’s electorate.  They are what governance should now be about.