Election of the Day II: Kosovo

I got excited about Ecuador and forgot about Kosovo, where elections also took place today, but where due to time zones today is actually mostly yesterday, so results are starting to come in. So no full writeup, but for some context I recommend this Guardian article:

Fears of partition that arose during Trump’s first administration have re-emerged as PM Albin Kurti navigates tense relations with both US and EU. Kosovo goes to the polls on Sunday in an election that could mark a crossroads in the young country’s history and even determine its future territorial integrity in an increasingly hostile world.

With the election outcome very much in the balance, the prime minister, Albin Kurti, held a mass rally in Pristina on Friday evening, under the slogan “From corner to corner”. It celebrated the fact that Kurti has succeeded where his predecessors had failed, in tightening the control of the Albanian-majority government over a rebellious Serb area on its northern border.

That sense of hard-won territorial integrity appears increasingly vulnerable however. While Kurti did not mention Donald Trump by name, his presence hung over the rally on the freezing Pristina night. While every national capital has been watching the words and actions of an ever more mercurial US president since his return to the White House, Kosovo has more at stake than most. The last Trump administration backed a plan which at some point involved Kosovo’s partition, and one of his officials has already begun assailing Kurti on social media.

Kurti’s party, Vetëvendosje, won an absolute majority four years ago on a programme that combined social democracy, anti-corruption and fierce Albanian patriotism. The name means “self-determination”, and Friday night’s rally was awash with bright red Albanian flags, dotted with a small handful of Kosovo’s national flag. That emblem, which hangs outside Kurti’s office in Pristina, is a compromise, portraying Kosovo’s geographical outline and some white stars on a blue background, shorn of historical and ethnic overtones.

The Albanian flag is, Kurti said, “something of a long tradition that continues”.

Speaking to the Guardian on Saturday, the prime minister said he had every reason to believe that Kosovo-US relations would remain as strong as ever.

“We have enhanced our cooperation with the US during our tenure. It used to be mainly diplomatic, and we have added defence and development,” Kurti said.

However, Richard Grenell, who was special envoy for Serbia and Kosovo in the first Trump administration, tweeted on Friday that Kurti’s optimism on where he stood with Washington was “delusional”.

“Relations have never been lower,” said Grenell, who a few days earlier had said Kurti’s government was “not trustworthy”.

Preliminary results/exit polls suggest Kurti will likely remain in power, but will be forced into a coalition government due to a decline in support relative to 2021.