What will the upcoming elections bring to Kosovo?

Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani has dashed all opposition hopes for early elections. The date for the regular elections is set for next year, with details to be announced after she consults with all political parties starting on Wednesday, July 31. Kosovo Online’s interlocutors believe that this decision hides the intention of Self-Determination Movement leader Albin Kurti to win a new prime ministerial mandate without major problems, as well as to delay the obligations from the dialogue, including the formation of the Community of Serb Municipalities, for as long as possible.

Written by: Arsenije Vuckovic

In a letter sent to party leaders a few days ago, Osmani stated that based on the Constitution and the Law on General Elections, regular elections should be held between January 26 and February 16 of next year.

"In this regard, based on my constitutional powers to call elections for the Kosovo Assembly, I invite you to a consultative meeting on July 31," Osmani wrote in her letter.

The Central Election Commission (CEC) soon announced that it would intensify preparations for the elections, but only after the exact date is determined.

"Aware that this is an election year, the CEC has focused its work from the beginning of the year on preparing many issues related to the Commission's legal obligations. Part of this is the introduction of the CEC software, which is currently being developed and enabled with the support of the OSCE. With this software, many election operations will be digitized," CEC spokesperson Valmir Elezi said.

A new feature, according to the new Law on General Elections, is that unlike previous elections, voters in the upcoming elections will have the right to choose up to ten candidates for MPs from one political option.

The opposition was confident that these new features would be tested this year.

However, a few days ago, Foreign Minister Donika Gervalla informed them that there would be no "hot political summer or autumn" this year.

“There will be no elections in September, and they will be held on the regular date, in February next year. Politically, autumn will be a bit warmer than summer because we will show a bit more than we have done so far: first, our achievements; second, our vision; and third, that we must prepare for elections,” Gervalla said.

Projections indicate that Self-Determination has the majority, however, the question is who can and must align with whom, given the relatively high threshold. Will some obvious conflicts from this mandate spoil coalitions, or will they be overlooked for the sake of a "higher goal"?

Who will align with Kurti?

Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Pristina and former head of the Central Election Commission, Mazllum Baraliu, tells Kosovo Online that all surveys indicate that Self-Determination could receive between 46 and 49 percent of the votes in the next elections, but that it is hard to expect that they could form a broader coalition, except with the Guxo party led by Vjosa Osmani.

“Self-Determination has no one to collaborate with. No party wants to form a coalition with them, and even if they do, it will not be a unified government that would act decisively. I don't see such a possibility. Whoever comes will find it difficult to form a government; there will be problems and speculation. But there will certainly be issues in terms of efficiency because time and practice have shown that the current compositions of these governments have not been sufficient; they have actually delivered minimal results,” Baraliu believes.

According to him, the most realistic expectation is for the Guxo party to continue collaborating with Self-Determination.

“I think there is no other way if they want to survive. According to all surveys and tests conducted, Self-Determination can certainly get between 46 and 49 percent of the votes, and that is without the diaspora. If Guxo runs alone, in my deep conviction, it will not be able to succeed,” Baraliu believes.

He adds that the problem for most smaller parties, including the ruling Guxo party if it tries to go alone in the elections, is the high electoral threshold of 5 percent.

Baraliu finds the key reasons for Guxo in its poor party infrastructure.

“In comparison to how they have behaved so far, it seems they haven’t paid enough attention to working on the ground and have been more focused on daily business and tasks. They cannot achieve anything on their own. But with Self-Determination, they certainly can,” Baraliu concludes.

“Higher goal”

Former OSCE ambassador Branka Latinovic says it was unlikely from the beginning that Albin Kurti’s ruling party would end the last year of its mandate with early elections, but that regardless of who wins, every party will continue to insist on fulfilling the “higher goal.”

“This higher goal is well known, meaning the consolidation of Kosovo's jurisdiction over the entire territory of Kosovo. The main issue now is what should be under the jurisdiction of the Community of Serb Municipalities. It is not a question of whether it should be formed or not – it must be formed. But all this delay is actually about the jurisdiction and mandate of what the CSM should encompass,” Latinovic told Kosovo Online.

This experienced diplomat explains that early elections are always held for a reason: if the ruling party loses its parliamentary majority or due to internal reasons or instability.

She reminds that in European practice, this was recently the case with France and Spain following losses in the European Parliament elections for President Emmanuel Macron’s party or local elections for Spain's Socialist Party.

“They felt the need to check their legitimacy, their majority. It is clear that, for now, there is no such reason in Kosovo and Metohija, and they have a reason to stick to the regular schedule for holding elections. There are probably other reasons as well, considering how everything is unfolding in the negotiations. At this moment, it leans more toward Kurti himself since he very skillfully avoids forming the Community of Serb Municipalities,” Latinovic believes.

She assumes that the government in Pristina will leave the topic of dialogue and the formation of the CSM to the new European administration, i.e., the new negotiator who will succeed Miroslav Lajcak in January.

“And we already know who will be the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy,” Latinovic concludes, alluding to the selection of Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas.

Pre-election calculations

However, Marko Blazic, a researcher at the Center for Social Stability, says that Prime Minister Albin Kurti has been calculating the timing of the elections from the start to "buy time" and delay the formation of the Community of Serb Municipalities.

“If we look, at the beginning of this year Kurti was advocating for elections, precisely because of the European Union institution elections, the upcoming American elections, and at that moment, in those geopolitical circumstances, he believed that elections suited him to some extent. But we had the problem of opposition disunity. Some wanted a vote of no confidence in the government, while others agreed to dissolve the assembly, which was Kurti's proposal. There was no agreement, they did not gather the necessary 80 votes in parliament to vote no confidence, and then Kurti and his Self-Determination party backed away from the idea of early elections. I primarily see this in the pressures from the European Union and the United States to enter the process of forming the CSM,” Blazic told Kosovo Online.

He adds that Kurti abandoned early elections due to changes on the geopolitical scene, as well as the debacle regarding membership in the Council of Europe and Western pressures to form the CSM.

“Albin Kurti simply wants to buy additional time to avoid entering the process of forming the CSM or to extract benefits from the US for Kosovo by November,” Blazic says.

When asked how changes at the helm of the United States would affect the policy toward Kosovo, this researcher says that Kurti is precisely afraid of this.

“Let's recall that Albin Kurti directly called on Albanian voters in the US in 2020 to vote for Joe Biden. I do not believe that Trump and his team will easily forget this,” Blazic specified.

Commenting on the possible election results, Blazic reminds that Kurti's Self-Determination has the greatest voter support and that in a new mandate, it will continue with the same policy – obstructing dialogue.

“He consistently takes unilateral actions to the detriment of Serbs in our southern province, with the desire to achieve his clear goal of an ethnically clean Kosovo. He will do everything to halt the negotiation process. The fact that for a full 11 years, and of course in the past four to five years, he has been avoiding the formation of the Community of Serb Municipalities speaks volumes. I emphasize, he is simply using the postponement of elections due to geopolitical circumstances to utilize this vacuum space for additional extremization of the situation and for avoiding the formation of the CSM, clearly indicating that there is no dialogue with him,” Blazic says.

He believes that the West will eventually seek a more cooperative interlocutor than Kurti.

“America and the European Union will have to look for someone willing to cooperate. The process of normalizing relations must continue, and it cannot proceed if the formation of the CSM is not initiated. Albin Kurti persistently avoids this, and I think their unity for the higher goal will be seriously tested. The political West will test them, primarily in the desire to find constructive interlocutors in our southern province. Simply, the process of forming the CSM must be initiated, and with Albin Kurti, this is not possible. I think the chances are slim that they will remain united in a policy that will isolate them,” Blazic believes.

He explains that this unity will be disrupted by the West itself.

“The process must move forward at some point. This situation has become unbearable. The situation for Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija is unbearable. If Albin Kurti continues to pursue this policy, I fear that we will face only increasing escalation,” Blazic concludes.