Vujinovic: Many economic promises made to voters in Kosovo lack any real basis

Security studies researcher Nikola Vujinovic stated that economic promises are essentially the most important issue for voters in Kosovo because the economic situation there is poor, but that many of those promises lack any real basis.

Vujinovic told Kosovo Online that for the portion of voters who build their livelihood in Kosovo, the economy is indeed the most significant dimension, but that for a large number of voters coming from the diaspora, other issues are more important because they live in a different economic reality and are not interested in the economic reality in Kosovo.

“The economy is indeed the most important issue for voters because the economic crisis is severe and the economic situation is poor. But the increase in ethnic and identity-based rhetoric and the insistence on anti-Serb moves tell us that voters somehow need to have ‘the wool pulled over their eyes.’ Various promises have no real basis and serve only to make people feel good until June 7. Then they vote, and on June 8 nothing will change,” Vujinovic said.

As one example, he mentioned the assistance that the caretaker government promised to students.

“They can apply for 100 euros until June 5, and that assistance will be paid out, for example, on June 8. That shows this is pure vote-buying and something Mr. Kurti is using. Once you do not have real economic results, and they do not exist, once you do not have a real economic foundation, and it does not exist, then all your promises are fantastical,” our interlocutor pointed out.

Whether voters will nevertheless decide based on economic promises will, in his assessment, depend on the intensity with which identity, security, and global issues are used during the campaign.

“We see visits by congressmen trying through an initiative in Congress to bring Kosovo into NATO. They suddenly come to Priština during the campaign. Therefore, the question is how intensive the campaign on non-economic issues will be. What the primary topics will be, we will see once the campaign officially begins. We can already see that the slogans of Albanian parties are not economic, but political, geopolitical, and security-related,” Vujinovic noted.

He recalled that these are already the fourth elections in a year and a half in Kosovo and that since February 2025 it has been evident that issues of the economy and quality of life are very significant at the beginning of the campaign, but as it progresses they are pushed to the margins.

“In the end, it turns out that those were not really promises at all, because there are no results whatsoever. That was the case in February, in October, and in December of last year. Unfortunately, it will be the same in June this year as well,” he assessed.