Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, is awash with election posters. From streetlamps, billboards and walls, politicians’ faces smile down at passersby, their parties’ snappy election slogans seeking to grab voters’ attention and secure their backing on Election Day.
Kosovo goes to the polls for parliamentary elections on Sunday. It will be the first regular scheduled parliamentary election since Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in February 2008. From 2008 through 2021, there were only snap elections.
Candidates are running for 120 seats in the unicameral parliament. Twenty of these seats are reserved for members of national minorities, with half of those for Kosovo Serbs.
Until the 2021 election, the country was ruled by coalitions made up of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) and the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), which were led by senior figures in the independence movement of the 1990s.
But the 2021 parliamentary election was won by the Albanian-nationalist social-democratic Vetevendosje (Self-Determination Movement), led by Albin Kurti, a student leader and, from early 1999 to late 2001, political prisoner under Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic. Kurti is running for reelection on Sunday.
Loggerheads with Serbia
Over the past four years, Kurti has radically changed the course of Kosovo’s foreign policy.
Though previous Kosovo governments had acted in close coordination with international allies, in particular the United States — or, as Kurti and his party see it, at the bidding of foreign powers — the current government has acted largely autonomously since 2021.
Kurti’s top priority is to enforce Kosovo’s full sovereignty with regard to Serbia and seek the country’s emancipation from the international protecting powers, whose policies Vetevendosje deems “colonialist.”
Since 2011, the European Union has sought to get Serbia and Kosovo to normalize relations.
Before Kurti took office in 2021, dialogue between the governments was largely on hold. Since then, it has been practically nonexistent.
The reason for this is that Serbia does not intend to recognize Kosovo’s sovereignty, while Kosovo is resisting making permanent concessions that would give Serbia opportunities to interfere in domestic politics.
Tension, violence, pressure
One of the main stumbling blocks in this respect relates to the creation of what is known as the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities in Kosovo, or local governments that are seeking a certain degree of collective autonomy.
In return, Serbia is being asked to abandon its blockade policy so that Kosovo can become a member of global organizations such as the UN.
Though no progress has been made on this matter in recent years, Kurti quickly began implementing his sovereignty policy after he came to power. This included introducing the euro as sole legal tender in the country, including in the areas that have a majority Serb population and had thus far been using the Serbian dinar for transactions.
Serbia responded to this by increasing its military presence at the border. In addition Serbian paramilitary forces in northern Kosovo carried out a number of violent acts, which required intervention by the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping troops.
The conflict continues to intensify with Serbia, where President Aleksandar Vucic is adopting an increasingly aggressive tone toward Pristina.
Kosovo’s government is getting quite a lot of pushback from the EU and US because it does not want to be forced into making “deals” with Serbia.
The youth vote
In the run-up to Sunday’s election, regional and geopolitical problems such as these are dominating headlines about Kosovo in both national and international media.
For young voters especially, however, these developments are not the only issue in the election: Socioeconomic conditions within the country are extremely important, too.
Kosovo has the youngest population in Europe. Unemployment is about 33% among people younger than 24. Corruption is also a major problem four years after Kurti and Vetevendosje won the election on a clear anti-graft ticket.
Besarta Jashari is a 21-year-old journalist who works at the private radio and television broadcaster RTV 21. Jashari told DW that, more than anything else, she wants social change.
“Here, the lack of jobs and the low wages mean that people are forced to emigrate,” Jashari said. “The health care system also has to be improved because many people here are forced to travel abroad for treatment. And, finally, I would also like to see more opportunities for girls and young women.”
“Politics is always dominated by the same old characters,” Jashari said. “There is hardly any room for young voices with fresh perspectives and progressive ideas. In this parliamentary election, too, none of the parties trusts a women to run for the post of prime minister.”
Exodus from Kosovo
Political scientist Nexhmedin Spahiu told DW that “young people in Kosovo do not have the patience to wait for the development of the country: They want secure jobs and a society where merit matters, not party membership or proximity to power.”
Lea Hoxhaj, an 18-year-old student of applied economics and management from Pristina who will be voting for the first time on Sunday, told DW that Kosovo’s next government “should create new jobs, support young people and make sure that the education system is better equipped — in terms of both qualified teachers and teaching materials.”
Since visa-free travel to the European Union was introduced on January 1, 2024, Kosovo’s already-declining population has further decreased, pushing up the average age of the people who remain.
If the next government does not listen to the concerns of young people, the ever-increasing exodus from the country is likely to continue, creating an even greater problem for Kosovo than the conflict with Serbia and international actors.
This article was originally written in German.
