Dear oppositionists, dear LDK and PDK, the fault for why we are going to the elections again is entirely yours and the main responsibility now falls on you. Not because Albin Kurti and his people are right, are good or have a higher state political awareness than yours. But because you, once again, are proving that you do not know how to do smart politics and that the only thing you are interested in is power in the state.
And you are trying to achieve this not through ideas, but through crises.
Written by: Fadil Sahiti
The next crisis in Kosovo is already looming. A new political absurdity awaits us. We will have new elections for the third time in almost a year. Not even Great Britain can foot the bill for this crisis. We can. And the formal reason is as absurd as the elections themselves. The opposition cannot tolerate a president who is imposed by the winners of elections they lost. Both the government and the opposition continue to treat the state as a stage for tactical political maneuvers and not as a sphere of public responsibility.
Let us be clear from the outset. This editorial is not intended to defend either the VV or its leader. The way they have behaved and exercised power so far bears clear signs of authoritarianism. No one who takes democracy seriously can ignore this. But precisely because this is true, the opposition should have been more responsible, not more immature.
And instead of political maturity, the opposition has decided to produce yet another crisis. In this “turbulent” historical period, Kosovo’s interest is not the symbolic game of who will become president. For most people, it has no existential significance whether Vjosa or Glauku will be at the head of the state. Both are products of the same culture and the same logic of power. The existential question at this time is whether the state will have functional institutions or not. We do not have the luxury of behaving like a laboratory where non-existent political crises are fabricated.
If the primary interest were the state and not the government, the opposition would have to choose the simple path: to participate in the process, to secure the quorum and to vote against the candidates proposed by VV. I do not believe that anyone would interpret this as support for the government. On the contrary, this action would mark a minimal act of state responsibility. But this action requires something that our opposition seems to have lost during the time it ruled Kosovo: a sense of the state and its interests.
The opposition has chosen the crisis because it seems that political crises create material for it to work on. This imagined war, in our political culture more than anything else, clearly replaces the lack of political ideas and programs.
What both opposition parties in Kosovo – LDK and PDK – are demonstrating is the lack of ability to reflect accurately and honestly. They have not yet understood that more than power, they need a radical reform within themselves. Not cosmetic and rhetorical reforms, as they have done so far.
LDK and PDK have not changed at all. Look at their parliamentary lists. The same people; the same mindsets; the same mechanisms of power. You cannot expect new results with the same actors of the past. The motto power at all costs must be replaced with reforms at all costs; new ideas must be created; real models of governance that give hope must be built.
The opposition must understand that Kosovo can no longer be governed by people whose only political capital is war, or the 'Rugavian' philosophy. Neither one nor the other are political currencies that produce good governance. We live in a completely different era, in which only those who know how to solve real problems thrive.
Everything else is just political theater.
Therefore, honorable oppositionists, honorable LDK and PDK, the fault for why we are going to the elections again is entirely yours and the main responsibility now falls on you. Not because Albin Kurti and his people are right, are good or have a higher state political awareness than yours. But because you, once again, are proving that you do not know how to do smart politics and that the only thing you are interested in is power in the state.
And you are trying to achieve this not through ideas, but through crises.
t7 live
