Elections, Political Parties and Intra-Party Democracy in Kosovo
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DEMOCRATISATION 2017 ADEM BEHA BETWEEN STABILISATION AND DEMOCRATISATION Elections, Political Parties and Intra-Party Democracy in Kosovo CPC & FES Prishtine, 2017 Reviewers: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bekim Baliqi Assoc. Prof. Dr. Anton Vukpalaj Dr. Gëzim Visoka Title: Elections, political parties and intra-party democracy Author: Adem Beha Translated from Albanian into English by: Florian Agalli Proofreader of Albanian edition: Gazmend Bërlajolli Coordinator: Besa Luzha Editor: Arben Hajrullahu Publisher: Centre for Political Courage and Political Science Department, University of Prishtina (Kosovo) Supported by: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Print and design: Milky Way Creative Published in Prishtina, 2017 © Publication rights belong to the author and publisher ISBN 978-9951-8857-2-0 The views expressed in this book do no not necessarily reflect those of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. CONTENTS Introduction 7 Theoretical Considerations: Political Parties, Intra-Party Democracy and Electoral System 13 Elections to 'Buy' Stability – UNMIK's Strategy of Status quo-ism 31 Power Reconfiguration in Kosovo and Beyond – 2004 General Elections 61 Role of Political Parties in Kosovo's Statebuilding 77 "Misunderstanding Democracy" in Independent Kosovo - Electoral Fraud and "Dellocracy" 105 The 2014 Elections' Simulacrum – Promises, Crises and Campaigns 141 Economic Development, Corruption and Disappointment from Eulex 167 Intra-Party Democracy 189 Conclusions 257 References 271 7 INTRODUCTION As the XX-th century drew to a close, during the 90s and under the conditions of Serbia's patronage over Kosovo, the emergence of the first political parties established simulated pluralism in the Kosovo political scene. Until 1996, as Yugoslavia was disintegrating and the communist system was crumbling, 15 different political parties were introduced and organised in Kosovo.1 This great schism between political groupings suited Milošević's policy, since Belgrade believed such divisions between Albanians would make it easier to control the tense situation in Kosovo. Despite these divisions, the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) remained the largest political grouping in Kosovo, against the backdrop of other political entities, like the Parliamentary Party of Kosovo, Youth Parliament of Kosovo, Christian Democratic Party, Peasant Party of Kosovo etc. Shkelzen Maliqi has argued that pluralism was simply a façade during the rule of Milosevic's Yugoslavia over Kosovo, and that political entities were not true political parties.2 Despite the establishment of this kind of pluralism, Oliver Schmitt notes that "[...] between 1992 and 1998, the LDK ruled almost unchallenged 1 International Crisis Group, "Unifying the Kosovo Factions: The Way Forward' (ICG Balkan Report no 58, Brussels - Tirana, 12 March 1999), p. 3. 2 See Shkelzen Maliqi, Kosovo: Separate Worlds (Dugagjini PH, MM, Prishtina 1998), p.16. 8 over the Kosovar society"3 casting its shadow over most of the other parties. After NATO's intervention in 1999, followed by the establishment of the UNMIK administration and removal of Serb forces and authorities from Kosovo, the political scene heated up between the LDK and the political forces that had organised the armed struggle. This ostensible political polarisation condensed into the fog created by the lack of political accountability of the two major political forces in the country. On one hand, after organizing the 1991 referendum on Kosovo's declaration of independence (which had no international effects) the LDK established a government in exile led by Prime Minister Bujar Bukoshi. He launched the so-called 'Three Percent Fund", used by the Albanian diaspora to contribute to the organisation of a parallel life in Kosovo, to finance education and health as the two main pillars of support of the Albanian civil resistance and demographic cohesion in Kosovo. On the other hand, KLA representatives in the diaspora, who would later would become key figures in the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), established another fund, known as the "Motherland is Calling". This fund was also raised by the diaspora in support of the KLA armed struggle. Neither of these parties, nor the administrators of these two funds have ever reported exactly on what, how and where these resources were spent. As of late, some light has been shed on the issue - between 2006 and 2011, over half a million euros have been withdrawn from the "Three Percent Fund'. According to the investigation of the news portal Insajderi, it appears that the Republic of Kosovo Fund was registered as an NGO and it possessed bank accounts in 3 Oliver Jens Schmitt, ―Kosova: Histori e Shkurtër e Një Treve Qendrore Ballkanike” (Kosovo: A Brief History of a Central Balkan Territory) (KOHA, Prishtina, November 2012), p. 250. 9 Germany, Italy, Albania and Belgium. In late 2000, Mr. Isa Mustafa, former Minister of Finance in the government of the Republic of Kosovo led by Bukoshi, now LDK president and Kosovo's prime minister, declared that the fund still carried around 50 million German Marks.4 Likewise, very little light was shed on the "Motherland is Calling" fund, managed by current PDK leaders. Both main parties, the LDK and PDK, have mitigated public debates about the respective responsibilities for the management of the parallel institutional life in Kosovo and the organisation of the struggle for the liberation of Kosovo. With the end of the war, UNMIK established the legal infrastructure for the operation of political pluralism in Kosovo. The Democratic League of Kosovo continued to have the upper hand in post-war Kosovo. However, the newly-established parties, whose leadership rose from the ranks of the KLA, especially the PDK and AAK, managed to collect a considerable number of votes in the post-war elections. One of the major misconceptions of the UNMIK international administration of Kosovo, according to King and Mason, was the fact that in UNMIK's eyes, Kosovo's political parties were "treated as if they resembled their Western counterparts – a group of civic minded people bound together by a shared commitment to certain ideological principles. In reality, they were personally driven patronage networks, some of them rooted in the KLA."5 In other words, during this period, same as today, political parties were not guided by ideological principles, but by clientelistic and patrimonial reasoning. 4 Vehbi Kajtazi, 'Suspicious transactions from the 3% fund - cash withdrawals until 2012', Insajderi, February 19, 2016. Web link http://www.insajderi.com/hulumtime/transaksionet-e-dyshimta-nga-fondi-i-3- shit-terheqje-parash-deri-ne-vitin-2012/(June 2, 2016). 5 Iain King and Whit Mason, Peace at any Price: How the world failed Kosovo (Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 2006), p. 244. 10 UNMIK did not care much about the internal organisation of political entities in Kosovo. This mission was interested to know "who is who" in the main regions of Kosovo and follow the strategy of cooperation only with party leaders. Through them, on the one hand it legitimized the exercise of power in the eyes of Kosovars and, on the other hand it controlled most of the territory of Kosovo, meaning that it was able to preserve peace in Kosovo's main regions controlled by these leaders. UNMIK viewed the organisation of elections before Kosovo's independence as an instrument for stability and buying time, in the absence of an exit strategy from Kosovo, and not as part of the process of democratisation of the society. This paradigm of ―elections as a stability instrument‖ was followed until February 2008, when Kosovo declared its independence. Since neither the general democratisation of the society, nor the internal democracy of political parties were among UNMIK's priorities, party leaders gained power well beyond their parties. The political disputes of the first local and general elections organised in Kosovo echoed with harsh rhetoric. Political parties, especially the LDK and PDK, would label each other "friend- enemy" in Schmitt-like fashion.6 PDK representatives labelled as traitors some of the key figures of the LDK, because, according to them, the LDK had not supported the liberation war of the KLA. In a political environment where parties treated each other as 6 For Schmitt, politics is a flow of new groups that identify with the friend- enemy dichotomy. Schmitt notes that being a political enemy does not necessarily require being morally evil or aesthetically ugly, economically powerful and so forth. For Schmitt, the enemy is, in an especially intense way, "existentially something different and alien, so in extreme cases, conflicts are possible. See Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (University of Chicago Press, Expanded Edition, 2007). On the use of this concept in contemporary political theory, see Chantal Mouffe, On the Political (Routledge; New Ed edition, 2005); Chantal Mouffe, The Return of the Political (Verso Books; Revised edition, 2005); Chantal Mouffe, Agonistics: Thinking the World Political y (Verso, 2013). 11 ―enemies‖, the problem of internal democratisation was not a subject of priority. The internal democratisation of the party, branch and sub-branch autonomy, plurality of views and approaches towards party politics, meritocratic selection of candidates of political parties, were not part of the political agenda of political parties. Since the model of democracy installed in Kosovo was ―consociational democracy‖, none of the parties, including the LDK, was able to lead the government on its