Radakovic: Election date had the greatest impact on the opposition’s poor result

Dusan Radakovic from the NGO “Democracy in Action” assessed that the date of the snap parliamentary elections and the arrival of the Kosovo diaspora during that period had the greatest impact on the poor electoral result of opposition parties.

“I think the election date had the biggest impact, because December 28 is two days after the Christmas holidays, and between 300,000 and 500,000 Albanians arrived during that period. That means about 100,000 more people voted in these elections. In February we had 800,000 voters, now more than 900,000, and that is the seven to eight percent that Kurti had more compared to the February elections,” Radakovic told Kosovo Online.

Noting that both the Serb List and other parties had more votes in the December 28 elections than on February 9, Radakovic says this is surprising because, as he adds, expectations were that turnout in the fourth electoral cycle this year would be ten percent lower.

According to him, December 28 showed the difference between local and parliamentary elections.

“As far as opposition parties are concerned, the PDK lost two percent, which was somewhat expected, but the biggest losers of these elections are the LDK and Ramush’s party. That was expected, but not to such an extent for the LDK, because it won municipalities such as Pec and Pristina, and now the parliamentary elections have shown how much less support they have in those municipalities,” our interlocutor said.

The opposition’s room for maneuver is currently small, Radakovic says, adding that the only option for the opposition to go to new snap elections is if the president of Kosovo is not elected in March.

“A big difference between local and parliamentary elections has been shown, as well as differences among voters. The opposition has very little room for maneuver. The only thing it can do is to fight and, when it comes to new parliamentary elections, to seek them through the presidential election, because without the support of the PDK or the LDK, or perhaps the AAK together with the Serb List, we will not have a president of Kosovo and new parliamentary elections will be called,” Radakovic concluded.