Kosovo has voted for a change. Albin Kurti and Vjosa Osmani have shown political mobility performance, unlike the schematic campaigns of the ruling parties. The whole electoral process has reflected a consolidated political and democratic awareness and culture. The ruling parties have correctly accepted the defeat. The post-election phase will be a test of the coalition capacity of the winning opposition parties.
Author: Bardhyl Zaimi
Early parliamentary elections in Kosovo have brought a change in the political scene. As announced by previous surveys, the opposition parties, the Vetevendosje Movement and the Democratic League of Kosovo have managed to win the largest number of votes. The winner of these elections according to the results of the CEC of Kosovo is Albin Kurti’s party, while the second is the Democratic League of Kosovo. These two political entities have won more than half of the vote in the October 6th early elections, while the result between them is very narrow in favor of the Vetevendosje Movement.
The candidates for the post of Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Vjosa Osmani, together with their teams, have shown a different performance during this campaign, which has resulted in this election result. There has been a change in Albin Kurti’s political discourse, but also a greater political flexibility, without leaving his ideological trajectory, from the consequence of his original ideas, which has been enriched with other conceptions of the war against corruption, the rule of law and equal opportunities. Kurti has run an atypical campaign, deeply unconventional, motivated and open-minded, but always maintaining his original principled ideological essence on all issues raised in the Kosovo debate.
Another dimension of victory is also likely to be attributed to the easily recognizable political slogan “The day came”, as a moment of change. A similar political performance has been shown by LDK candidate Vjosa Osmani, who has also promoted moderate, motivating and mobilizing discourse. In fact, Vjosa Osmani has been seen as the “freshness” and winning option in the often tired and divided LDK. The result of this party seems to come from the cohesive and modern figure Vjosa Osmani, who radiated political energy, vision and credibility to the traditional LDK electorate during the campaign.
But, it seems that the victory of the opposition parties is not only due to this discursive and political performance, only because of the vision that they have unfolded. This change seems to have another element in the background, that of the ruling parties, the practices of mismanagement detected and articulated by the opposition parties. This aspect, but also the schematic campaign without any nervousness, without any vision of overcoming itself, seems to have been crucial to this election result. Probably the fall of PDK and AAK had happened earlier, somewhere in the reality of Kosovo’s citizens ‘dissatisfaction over the many years of mismanagement that could no longer be left unpunished by the citizens’ votes.
It seems that aware of this preliminary defeat, the two leaders of the ruling parties, Kadri Vejseli and Ramush Haradinaj, have accepted with political correctness the election result, namely the loss of their parties in this election. Kadri has briefly stressed that his party has lost and is “going in opposition”.
Even the AAK-PSD candidate for Prime Minister of Kosovo, Ramush Haradinaj, has said that his decision to return the sovereign the decision-making was proved and was a fair move. “Fair and calm competition has raised Kosovo and its citizens to a new standard of political and democratic maturity, serving as an exemplary model in the region. For this merit are all political parties, regardless which one”, emphasized Haredinaj.
Moreover, the whole electoral process has been smooth and with a substantial debate on Kosovo’s future. Political parties have demonstrated a culture of debate, while Kosovo’s citizens have shown political and democratic maturity. The head of the OSCE in Kosovo, Jan Brathu, in a statement for Euroneës Albania also praised the electoral process as calm, in a democratic manner and without major problems.
Regardless of the results, the whole electoral process, from the start of the election campaign to the correct acceptance of the results by the losing parties, points to an already consolidated democratic culture in Kosovo, to a political maturity that is addressed to the political parties, but above all citizens of Kosovo, who showed high democratic awareness
Of course, not everything ends with the election result. Taking into consideration precisely these results, it seems likely that the post-election period, that of the formation of the parliamentary majority and the formation of the Government will be much more unknown, although previously the winning opposition parties have stated that a coalition between them is possible. Early elections vote imposes a coalition between the LVV and the LDK, while it is unknown and foreseen which concept in which will be merged during this coalition. Precisely, the conceptual differences highlighted by the candidates themselves during the campaign can be seen as a difficult challenge for the coalition between these two entities, despite the fact that there are a lot of similarities in their programs.
The post-election period is likely to test the coalition capacity of the winning parties, LVV and LDK, which ranks second with a very narrow results between them. It is estimated that the process of forming the Government will take longer, meanwhile a mitigating circumstance remains the fact that PDK’s leader Vejsel has already declared his party’s opposition move. This seems to increase the likelihood of a coalition between Kurti’s party and the LDK. However, it seems likely that many post-election political and ideological mathematics will be combined.