Cornershop is my autonomous zone in the matrix of mainstream media where we can comment through the apparent and the implicit about Kosovo and beyond.
In this Corner Shop we look at the general election ‘landslide victory’ of Vetevendosje and what this means for Kosovo’s future politics.
With 27 per cent of the vote against the two large coalitions–one at a meagre 34 per cent, the other at a disappointing 25.5 per cent–Vetevendosje singlehandedly feels and looks like an electoral victor (even though it has yet to get the mandate to form a government). It has become common knowledge that Vetevendosje could be the only alternative that we have to a post-war system that is represented by the Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, which has governed the country for the past ten years. What a shame that it has to coalesce with a defeated LDK-AAK-Alternativa coalition, possibly in a dirty game of constitutional interpretations, ceremonially mastered by a warlord in head-of-state’s clothes.
Though we here at the Cornershop maintain a policy of strict confidentiality, I’ll share that the word on the street is that the US, EU and their partners do not want Albin Kurti at the helm; that their neutrality is a pretence, not because he is a teargas nationalist, but because he is a threat to a certain geopolitical cosiness. He’d interfere with a certain status quo in which the richest nation in lignite pays skyrocketing imported energy prices for the coal burned in its own garden. A certain status quo of a corrupt genuflecting government that makes Kosovo feel even more like the corrupt DR Congo dressed up for a Ramzan Kadyrov wedding party.
Ramush Haradinaj pretends to represent Albanian identity, territorial integrity, or any such crap. But all he will ever represent is a combination of emulative demagogy and manipulated tribalism in a puppet state.
The two pre-election coalitions were made of mercenaries in a savagely corrupt parliamentary system. They marched toward June 11 with party logos pinned on their shirts like sponsored ads, confetti and a cheerleading youth, knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing. The two great coalitions, the first, like the mythological many-headed water-dragon Hydra, the other like a three-headed hound Cerberus, met the sharp-lance of Albin Kurti and his shadow cabinet. Even though Kurti lost the epic battle, he returned like a conquering St. George, a politician of integrity and authenticity, a patron of national dignity, representing better spending proposals, economic freedom and social security.
Corner Shop’s vote to Vetvendosje wasn’t hearty, but tactical. It wasn’t a vote against the Office, but for a new opposition, freed from the monopoly of a by-default progressivist Vetevendosje.
However, back to reality, any future government coalition of Vetevendosje with LAA will lose ground when the myth of an omnipotent PDK has been duly demolished. When the pleasure of seeing PDK step down has been accomplished, we will watch the ladies and the gentlemen of LAA feel the discomfort of being under the organisational culture of Vetevendosje and as a result begin to flirt with PDK. While during such a scenario some will defect and join Vetevendosje while others will plot against it, how long until we will dejectedly have to vote again?
According to my humble opinion we’ll continue with such snap elections until we get people who actually know what’s going on into the Office. Honesty cannot be faked anymore, so there will be more and more people involved in nurturing disobedience and ready to serve it.