A good election, now work to be done
It seems safe to say now that Prime Minister Hashim Thaci’s PDK has won Kosovo’s Sunday parliamentary election, with close to 31% of the vote. Second place LDK was closer than some anticipated at almost 26%, but the big news was that the “Self-Determination” movement led by Albin Kurti beat out Ramush Haradinaj’s AAK, 13.5% to 9.6%. Overall turnout was low at about 42%. The Serb List garnered 4.2%, after a Belgrade push for Serbs in Kosovo to vote.
My friends who wished for a major shift in political power will be disappointed. My friends in the PDK are celebrating, even if the margin was narrower than some imagined.
My fondest wish was apparently realized: under the watchful eyes of a lot of Kosovo observers, the election appears to have been clean. I am told the biggest problems were attempts to influence voters within the restricted area near polling stations, problems with the voters’ list, and family-influenced voting. I have not heard complaints of ballot-box stuffing, intimidation or other wholesale cheating. Complaints were similar in Serb and Albanian areas.
There are lots of mathematical possibilities for Thaci to gain a majority. With minorities, any of the top Albanian parties might do as a partner. While Thaci has told many people he would prefer to retire from the prime ministry, I and a lot of other people will be surprised if he actually does it. His party has found him to be the absolutely necessary glue to hold things together. They won’t want him throwing in the towel after a respectable, if narrower than hoped for, victory.
The big issues facing Thaci or any other prime minister for the next four years will be economic. Kosovo needs much more investment (foreign and domestic) to create jobs for its still rapidly growing and young population. Some would like to focus on government-controlled investment, using funds held so far abroad. A wise course would be to improve conditions for private investment, both domestic and international. This will not be easy: Kosovo holds an unenviable 86th position in the World Bank’s ease of doing business ranking, admittedly ahead of Serbia and Albania but well behind neighboring Macedonia and Montenegro. The perception of corruption is a big hindrance to investment. Kosovo manages only 111th in the Transparency International ranking.
But whatever Kosovo’s problems, a decent election is a good foundation. Kosovo knows its ultimate goals: membership in NATO and the EU. Now it has to decide how to make tangible progress in that direction during the next four years. The country is a long way from where it was at independence six years ago, but it is still much farther than that from its ultimate goals.
PS: a late thought: all that NGO energy that went into election monitoring needs now to turn to accountaility and transparency of government actions. There is work to be done for everyone.
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According to reports I’ve read earlier today in Serbian media (e.g. B92 website), the new Kosovo prime minister will be – a bit surprisingly – Ramush Haradinay. While Mr. Thaci’s party won a relative majority of the vote, opposition parties joined forces against him and supported Mr. Haradinay. Even the “Self-determination” movement has allegedly supported the installation of Haradinay as prime minister, although the party will likely not participate in the ruling coalition.
The Belgrade [not to mention some of the Prishtina] papers are getting ahead of themselves, I think.
Here’s the relevant article of the Constitution:
“Article 95 [Election of the Government]
1.
After elections, the President of the Republic of Kosovo proposes to the Assembly a candidate for Prime Minister, in consultation with the political party or coalition that has
won the majority in the Assembly necessary to establish the Government.”
The “coalition that has
won the majority” – a coalition that ran as such, surely, not a coalition of the losers?
Otherwise, the winning party in the future will have to have over 50% of the vote to avoid a post-election coalition of the losers that still hope to take power. If it goes to the Constitutional Court for a ruling, you can only hope they get it right this time. Thaci probably won’t go as quietly as Sejdiu did, although his example of immediately complying with a ruling against him did set an excellent example for respect for the country’s new laws.
That is the official English translation posted above, which as far as I can tell is faithful to the original, but here’s the Albanian in case somebody can interpret it has giving the coalition a grammatical leg to stand on:
“Neni 95 [Zgjedhja e Qeverisë]
1.
Pas zgjedhjeve, Presidenti i Republikës së Kosovës i propozon Kuvendit kandidatin për
Kryeministër, në konsultim me partinë politike ose koalicionin që ka fituar shumicën e
nevojshme në Kuvend për të formuar Qeverinë.:
http://www.mkrs-ks.org/repository/docs/Kushtetuta.e.Republikes.se.Kosoves.pdf
Latest news from Serbian media: Thaci disputes legality of Haradinay’s potential premiership, invoking Kosovo’s constitution, which – according to Thaci’s claims – dictates that a party that has not won a majority of votes cannot appoint the prime minister. I am not a legal expert, so I don’t know what Kosovo’s constitution actually says, but I hope some of the readers from Kosovo will enlighten us.
Here’s the Serbian, which seems ambiguous about just what is supposed to happen:
“Član 95 [Izbor Vlade]
1. Predsednik Republike Kosovo, nakon izbora i konsultacija sa političkim partijama ili koalicijama koje su dobile neophdnu većinu za formiranje Vlade u Skupštini, predlaže Skupštini kandidata za Premijera. ”
Why the plural here?? “partijama ili koalicijama koje su dobile” ?
The Albanian “parti” can be either singular or plural, but koalicionin is pretty definitely singular. Do we have a translator’s goof here, or am I missing something?
It would be interesting to watch Kurti and the VV arguing in court that the Serbian version should prevail [whatever it means], since Kosovo was legally part of Serbia when the document was being drafted, and maybe still is (the latter depending on how desperate they are for an argument.)
Express‘s latest: PDK is offering Haradinaj the PM’s job. This would end everything neatly, and allow the Belgrade papers to start reviewing all the gruesome accusations against Haradinaj (of which he was found innocent) in every routine article on Kosovo. They have to tired of the same old stories about what (Serbia) has accused Thaci of, after all these years. Although I suppose they use macros and don’t actually keep retyping the stuff.
Here’s some text I wouldn’t be surprised to find has found its way into those tired old Serb macros about Prime Minister in spe Ramush Haradinaj.
On his first trial: “The Appeals Chamber found that the Trial Chamber had failed to take sufficient steps to counter the witness intimidation that permeated the trial” (ICTY press release following the second acquittal, 11/29/2012)
On his second trial: “As the retrial began, the main witness tried to avoid answering questions, again raising concerns about witness obfuscation and intimidation” (Headline of SETimes report of second trial, 8/23/11)
Trust those Serbs to scream about a miscarriage of justice just because a witness or two felt a bit insecure.
There was a retrial to examine the witnesses who refused to testify in the first. They were shown to be either lying or mentally incompetent, or both, and Haradinaj and the two others were found not guilty and released.
One of the two seems to have been reincarnated as the special witness in organ-trafficking case who claims to have cut the heart from a living man. There’s a detailed report here: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/05/06/130506fa_fact_schmidle?currentPage=all.
Search on “Adrian” – a pathological liar and small-time drug dealer, as described by his ex-wife.
“One of the two” dodgy witnesses – not one of the two co-defendants.
Sorry I have to reply to myself. Yes indeed one of the two witnesses was found unbelievable even by the prosecution. And Kabashi was claimed by his counsel to have PTSD, but I’m not sure that would have made him “mentally incompetent,” and the exchange between him and the judge, “You don’t know whether you fear for someone else?” “I don’t know,” sounds an awful lot like witness intimidation such as “permeated” (ICTY’s word) the first trial. I don’t think the Serbian newspapers can be blamed if they make hay with this.
A European election in 2014 where the governing party was not thrown out on its ear? Amazing. (With the votes that went to the new party formed by two former PDK members, Thaci would have had the 5% that went to them, and a clearer win.)
VV probably garnered the throw the bums out vote, allowing it to pick up a handful of seats in parliament, but failing to come in first anywhere, so the results are being viewed as overall defeat for the party. Kurti is trying to organize a mass protest by all the other parties to refuse to enter into a coalition with Thaci’s party, thereby preventing Thaci from becoming PM again. While Kurti continues to play l’enfant terrible, VV-cofounder Shpend Ahmeti is working to put the principles of good government into practice in Prishtina – introducing a “one-stop-shop” for government permits, for example. Thaci has said in the past – before the elections – that he could work with Shpend, they agree on many things, including the need to eliminate corruption, so at some point the co-founders may go their separate ways. VV will be sure to continue identifying Thaci as the source of all corruption in Kosovo, but I think Poroshenko represented a more realistic view of the problem in the first point of his inauguration speech in Kiev: “People must stop offering bribes, officials must stop taking bribes. If we are to change the country, we must first change ourselves.”
The LDK may be ready to revolt against its current leader, the former mayor of Prishtina who lost his own race in the local elections last December to Shpend Ahmeti and failed to lead them to victory in this one. The party is having corruption-perception problems of its own, with founder-Rugova’s son being charged with involvement in an Italian Embassy visa scandal, and had a hard time capitalizing on the desire for a fresh start and a new way of doing things that VV profited from.
The 4.18 percent the Serbs got was not enough to put them over the 5-percent threshold that would have triggered an automatic
addition to the 10 parliamentary seats they are entitled to under the constitution regardless of actual votes earned. Belgrade waited until 3 days before the election to finally call on Serbs to go to the polls, maybe hoping there was a chance of ruining the appearance of a decent turnout by Serbs and thereby the image of a successful election among the internationals. Or maybe they were distracted by the flood, or the latest scandal at home. In any case, the new government in Prishtina will have an easier time getting its initiatives through with the required 2/3 approval by the minority parties if the Serbs account for only half of that number. After the first returns were reported (at about 3%), Serbian papers began talking excitedly about the Serbian parties’ 8% showing, making them the third largest entity in the country, and the opportunities this would afford. The stories the next day were considerably more sober.
The poor showing by Haradinaj’s party, even in its stronghold, was a surprise. One possible scenario as a result – Thaci forms the new government and is named PM, appointing Haradinaj to some top post, then retires after the party is reconciled to the idea of a new chief as Haradinaj’s AAK and the PDK merge, with Haradinaj becoming PM. And then Thaci (after being cleared by the organ-theft court, taking his first vacation in years, and being reintroduced to his children) runs for president next year.
Haradinaj had a good reputation among the internationals during his brief tenure as PM before the Hague intervened, and he was especially appreciated for his willingness to put bitterness aside and work with the Serbs, long before the idea was popular in the country. He won’t get any help here from VV, who view Thaci’s accommodations with the Serbs as treason. And no matter who is Prime Minister or President, the economy will continue to be the major problem the country faces as part of the world economy.
(Nearly forgot – in comparison with the (total) 349 cases sent to trial for voting fraud after the past two elections, there were only 12-13 [sic] arrests during this one, mostly for minor infractions, as Dan pointed out. Why can’t they make the traditional “family voting” by the pairs of elderly who stagger their way to the polls a misdemeanor for the next decade or so?)