And then there were two

I was planning to blog something following the elections last weekend in Kosovo, but it took a Fistful of Euros to jog me into something resembling activity. Douglas Muir has a post up entitled “Kosovo: then what?“, wherein he fisks recent remarks by the Former US Ambassador to Serbia about what Serbia’s reaction is likely to be. It’s worth reading for his dismissal of the options available to Serbia at this point (here’s a clue - they don’t have any), and his own prediction that

Kosovo will get some sort of independence, Belgrade and Moscow will cry foul, there will be a certain amount of huffing and puffing… and then, not much. The borders will stay open; the lights will stay on. The medium-term effect will be to create a sort of Balkan Taiwan, recognized by some states but not by others.

Apart from the lights staying on (regular power cuts are still the norm in Pristina, let alone the rest of the country), he’s spot on. However, given that if enough EU member states recognise Kosovo, it’s likely that all of them will, then it’s unlikely that many other states will refuse to recognise it. States that don’t recognise it are likely to do so because they don’t really care very much one way or the other, rather than because they’re deeply opposed to independence.

As for conflict between Serbia and Kosovo, that will be a storm in the proverbial teacup. Large scale conflict is extremely unlikely, given the vested interests of both the EU and NATO stopping it quickly and forcefully and, if anything, independence is likely to increase tolerance within the province, since the Albanians won’t have anything left to prove. The postscript to a recent BBC report was interesting,

After this story was published, we received this e-mail from Serb musician Ivan Ivanov in Pirot, Serbia: “I recently (7 March) played in Babuka’s club with my band from Bulgaria. Everyone knew I was from Serbia. I had an amazing time. Of course, there were a couple of benign jokes, and a few friendly shouts (”Hey, Serb, come over here”), but I can definitely say that people from Pristina, or at least the crowd that hangs out in Babuka’s place, have moved on, and are looking forward to things getting back to normal. It will take time, it will take effort and compromise, it will take a lot of good will, but it will happen. Cheers to that!

I’ll take that with a pinch of salt, but you get the idea. So, Serbia doesn’t have any cards left to play except for Russia, which is frankly a wild card that they should leave in the box the cards came in (do you see what I did? Extended metaphor!). What about Kosovo? Most of the people I still know in Kosovo - who are English-speaking but hardly members of the political elite - seem to be fairly lacking in any faith in their politicians, and none of those politicians have any real political platform beyond independence. The elections went well, which is a good sign, but once independence is declared, that political elite will have to deliver.

I don’t think they will. I think they’ll fail to implement any significant reforms, and continue to make excuses for their failure to deliver on the most basic responsibilities government. As an example, a recent report on the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network had a gem in the article “Kosovo’s Daily Bread Gets Expensive“, reporting on sharp rises in the cost of flour:

Although grain price rises on the world market have affected the whole region, Kosovo has suffered the most, partly because of its lack of reserves, and partly because the delays to defining Kosovo’s long-term political status mean the government has few control mechanisms to cope with such crises.

Bujar Dugolli, the Minister of Trade and Industry, says that the lack of grain warehouses prevents the authorities from being able to deal with the problem.

“We are renting even the ministry’s premises,” Dugolli complained to reporters last week, making it clear that the government was unable to secure any kind of storage for key commodities.

What kind of feeble excuse is that? If they’re renting the ministry’s premises, why can’t they rent warehouses? It’s not as if any future government isn’t going to need warehouses, and it’s not that difficult to do - you find a warehouse, then you offer the owner some cash. The problem is that most politicians in Kosovo don’t have any experience in actually running anything, since they’ve been substantially carried by the international community since the war. There are good politicians and public servants, but you have to look quite hard to find them.

When I was in Kosovo a couple of weeks ago, I had the good fortune to meet with Jeta Xharra, BIRN’s Kosovo director, who was running a series of televised debates in each of the municipalities as well as a regular weekly show. This was a tremendously good idea, and clearly a shot in the arm for increasing the accountability in the election process, but the candidates’ performances weren’t up to much, according to her colleage Mufail Limani:

It would be good if the top leaders spared us having to put up with such clowns and backscratchers, but the candidates selected appear to represent their parties’ genuine political offer… Many candidates, who were on Xharra’s show, realise that it would have been better if they had not appeared at all.

I predict a lot more feeble excuses to come from assorted “clowns and backscratchers”, unfortunately, and the more the excuses keep coming, the more disillusioned the people are going to become. That’s where the real problems are going to be - not in potential conflict with Serbia, but in the internal conflicts that are likely to surface as frustration grows, particularly amongst young people. Plus, of course, the concern by surrounding countries about whether this sets a precedent for their own Albanian minorities. Is there a way out of this mess? Of course there is, but I’ll leave that for another post…