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Opinion
June 9, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 22
COMMENT:
Kosovo’s guns versus its roses
Alex Young in Belgrade
A full year short of the end of its mandate, a vote of no confidence in May finally brought to an end Kosovo’s anaemic government. Snap parliamen- tary elections this weekend have been dubbed a battle of ‘the Guns’ versus ‘the Roses’: the parties of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) old guard against those who once advocated peaceful re- sistance against Serbian oppression. Against a backdrop of looming indictments from the newly- established Specialist Chambers in The Hague, the elections promise to be the most contentious in the country’s short history.
The so-called ‘Guns’ comprise Kosovo’s largest party, the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), the Initiative for Kosovo (NISMA) and the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK). The latter’s leader, Ramush Haradinaj (the KLA’s former head), emboldened by Serbia’s failed attempt to have him extradited from France on war crimes allegations during Kosovo’s civil conflict with Serbia in the late 1990s, is their candidate for prime minister.
The KLA old boys have been forced into a pre- electoral tie-up by impending indictments from the Specialist Chambers, which will become fully functional in the coming months. The chambers will investigate a range of allegations against KLA members, including crimes against humanity and war crimes, deriving from the Council of Europe’s infamous 2010 Marty Report, which prompted
Today's election battle lines reflect the divisions during Kosovo's struggle for independence.
the EU to establish a special investigative task force. Mentioned in Marty’s report are Hashim Thaci (Kosovo’s current president), Kadri Veseli (the PDK’s new head) and Fatmir Limaj (NISMA’s head), among others.
These indictments threaten to remove the very people who have effectively captured Kosovo
and its institutions since Nato’s intervention
back in 1999 to stop the civil war in the then Serbian province between the ethnic Albanian majority and the ethnic Serbs, and the now independent country’s subsequent administration by the UN. To mitigate the ramifications on
the very core of their respective power bases (especially enterprises accused of being corrupt and criminal), old disagreements have been temporarily laid to rest. The hasty and shallow nature of their rapprochement (motivated as it is by personal interests), however, bodes ill for the prospect of stable and effective governance.
Opposing the ‘Guns’ are the ‘Roses’, who offer much in the way of technical competence but little in the way of charisma. The Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) of Prime Minister Isa Mustafa has joined forces with the New Kosovo Alliance (AKR), led by Kosovo’s wealthiest businessman, the copper-haired Behgjet Pacolli, and the newborn Alternativa. Kosovo’s minister of finance, Avdullah Hoti, is their candidate for the post of premier.