A new year with all to play for
Welcome to 2024 the year of elections: in Europe, the US, the UK and Kosovo. Serbi finished its election cycle in Decmber and despite the protests and random “analysts” and “experts” online blaming the EU for no speaking up about irregularities (they did) or demanding re-runs (probably not), President Vučić and his party stayed in power as predicted.
Vučić - especially outside of Belgrade - is seen as genuinely a stable force especially among the pensioners who come out in droves to vote for him. Unless more younger voters decide to vote there won’t be much change. The Oppostion has also been seen as less than useful. Every analyst, expert and academic who really understood Serbia noted this. Meanwhile, many others took this as an opportunity to blame the West for propping up Vučić: despite not congratulating him on is win; and quickly revealing how he cheated during the vote.
The cheating at this point is just a way to over egg the vote, to ensure that State employees and pensioners understand their loyalties and that those who oppose Vučić have no chance.
But light did come through in the cracks. Not through the protests but the Far right has now been dismantled in Serbia. Formerly important, extreme right parties headed up by the likes of Vuk Jeremić, are folding and attracting few votes.
This frees up space for Vučić to further step away from Kosovo: hence, giving up on the license plates issue, allowing Kosovo plates into Serbia. Serbia is now encouraging people to go back to the institutions; it supports the recent petition initiatives to get the mayors out.
Needless to say the far right and nationalist voices will project through the discourse for sometime and Vučić will play both sides for sometime but it is slowly moving towards the exit. It will likely not recognize Kosovo anytime soon though.
On Catholic Christmas Eve, the Ministry of Youth, Sport and Culture announced that they were renovating an Orthodox church in a small village in the north and reverting it back to its Catholic heritage. It announced a second church would be revived shortly thereafter.
A slew of new articles and social media posts came out suddenly explaining that Catholic churches had been usurped by Orthodox users.
The Western and Eastern faiths build churches on different axis points. That there is a very reasonable explanations for why Medieval church architecture is Orthodox. Namely, many Albanians were Orthodox though this mostly survives in Albania nowadays.
Instead of welcoming Serbia’s plates decisions, the Kosovo government chose a suspicious stance: ministers warned there were secret signals that Serb drivers knew to avoid harassment in Serbia. Kosovo refused to turn over its own ban for a week afterwards.
All of this leads to more pressure on the Kurti government: without making a movement on the Association of Serb Municipalities; moving the special police out of the north; holding new elections; ceasing land expropriation; honoring the Dečani monastery decision soonest the next US administration and even the EU may take aggressive measures against Kosovo.
If Trump does become president he will likely make Richard Grennell the Secretary of State. Grennell has never hid his pro Vučić views and stance and his very anti Kurti position. He will likely do everything to put Kosovo on its knees, if not try to force it back to Serbia but Vučić will be unlikely to want it back.
Meanwhile, Kurti will answer his own voters later this year. Despite the one victory that Kosovo now has visa liberalization. Many are concerned with the domestic issues that Kurti has not touched: education reform; healthcare reform; infrastructure; a poor economy; cost of living.
Many outside Kosovo haven’t clocked that the electricity prices has gone up quite a bit - in some cases doubling - as the electric distribution company has clamped down on non-payment now not even given a final due date, implying that all payments must be immediate.
Many will simply leave but what will others do?
Recommendations:
An excellent analysis on the defeat of the Far Right and Moderate Opposition in Serbia.
A 60 second read on the Serbian elections from Eric Gordy that explains it all.