The mutual games between LVV and the opposition, when the latter thought they had embarrassed Kurti and that they would make him pay, naively the opposition itself paid the price…
By Daut DAUTI
- One of the Kosovar opinion leaders, invited to Albanian televisions with triumphalism ahead of time, predicted that Albini had it and that after December 28, the government would change. He had even said that he would eat shit if it didn’t happen! He was so sure, like all the anti-Albinists, together with the opposition parties, that the opposition would secure enough seats to form a parliamentary majority… But, as the whole world knows, it happened that the LVV reversed the result of 2021, when it won over half of the seats foreseen for Albanian parties.
After all this, that popular word from the title of this article comes to mind. I have no experience in poultry, unlike years of livestock farming in childhood, so I don’t know how ducks behave in the fog. In the absence of experience, I have to judge from the context to conclude that ducks in the fog are lost like the Kosovo opposition! There is also that other word that can describe this situation, losing your way in the yard… A matter of finesse. When you don’t learn from any experience, then it’s difficult to orient yourself.
Three election scenarios within a year, leading to general confusion in Kosovo, but with a disappointing epilogue for the opposition.
The first is when Albin Kurti with VV won convincingly in the February elections, but the opposition treated him as if he had lost! Due to the political games of both parties, the crisis lasted endlessly, without the possibility of creating institutions. Once Kurti insisted on his right to impose a “divisive” candidate that the opposition did not want, and then when he found a “suitable” candidate (Dimal Basha), they scored an “own goal” after it turned out that he had been a co-author of a compromising publication for the KLA. Where the failure was more attributed to the PDK.
After that, the odyssey of forming a government continued, and it became clear that neither Albin Kurti nor the opposition could form one. The opposition’s chances were mostly ruined by the LDK, which had aimed for either the prime minister or nothing, and in circumstances where even if they collected all the opposition votes, without the Serbian List (which no one wanted), it would be in vain…
The second electoral scenario, which will certainly be the cause of false illusions of the opposition, is the local elections, where the opposition parties together defeated the LVV, keeping the main centers and not winning Mitrovica, would be a real fiasco for the ruling party. PDK with more votes in all of Kosovo, while VV almost equaled LDK. A wrong message that the opposition received from this success, it seems, will intoxicate the opposition parties, creating the perception that the electoral reputation of the LVV after all the blockades has declined and “the people see this”!
The third picture is what we saw on December 28! From 48 MPs, LVV increased to 56, which gives it the opportunity to easily create a parliamentary majority with MPs from non-Serb minorities and without having to beg PDK and LDK…
This was the consequence, but all analyses deal with the causes of this increase. In particular, with the causes of the decline of the LDK, which has five fewer MPs than in February -15, unlike the PDK, which lost only one MP -23.
The main reason lies in the anger and conviction created after the local elections that the LVV is going downhill! In such a situation, the opposition parties even more insistently increased their insistence not to participate in any way in the formation of the Government, neither by participating in it, nor by voting. They were not satisfied with preventing Albin, but they also prevented the other candidate, Glauk Konjofa, from forming a government that would practically carry out some urgent “homework” and some important international agreements for Kosovo. But they had done a math like a household bill without the innkeeper, “helping” Kurti for new early elections, where they themselves thought they would pass like in the local elections.
But the opposition parties forgot that after the failure to form a government, there would be some problems (RTK, urban transport in Pristina) that they would not be able to address only to LVV! Moreover, the citizens created another belief. On the other hand, if Kurti himself had softened his vocabulary (he had forgotten the “scoundrel”…), the media, social networks, the membership of LVV, unlike the opposition media, would have given him another clue, that of the opposition’s cooperation in the interests of Serbia. To create the perception that all the blockades that the opposition has made are in the interests of Serbia…
Even if there was a game with the delay of the process of creating institutions by Albin Kurti, in the end the citizens addressed all the blame to the opposition. Because, the opposition did not understand during these four years of Kurti how public opinion is created, how the psychology of the masses works (“everyone is against Albin because he is the most righteous”!). In addition, working with the option to go to the elections, they forgot that the president would choose the date that suited VV the most, when the expatriates return to their homeland for the new year. And their mood is easily oriented towards the causes of betrayal, so it was not difficult to assume that when “everyone is led against Albin”, including all of Serbia, it is a national duty to vote for him.
And we saw the result.
- On Thursday, the news broke that academic Nexhat Daci had passed away. An important personality, intellectual and politician who has left his mark on Kosovar society. His death brought him back to public attention, to remind him of something that is also relevant today. Because, in the electoral anemia of the LDK, the late Nexhat Daci certainly also played a role, since a few years ago, he was the first to break away from a good part of the LDK electorate. Meanwhile, Vjosa Osmani also “contributed” to the further fragmentation, so when you add up Lumir Abdixhiku’s strategies and miscalculations with the previous departures from the LDK of Daci and Vjosa Osmani, it is not surprising that the LDK is left with 15 MPs. Fatmir Limaj, who also broke away from PDK during Hashim Thaçi’s time, was finally de-factored on December 28, also not crossing the threshold, but also from LVV, but at the wrong time, without any positive effect for the refugees.
An oppositional narrative with a bleak epilogue.