OpEd

Vienna instead of Vitia, Geneva instead of Gjakova

The electoral campaign of Kosovar parties is moving to the West. This is a bad signal. Kosovo's politicians - especially those in power - have their place in Kosovo. They must appear in front of the citizens, communicate with them, explain what they have done in the last 4 years and what they have not accomplished, despite the astronomical promises.

Currently, the electoral campaign of Kosovo's political parties has moved to Zurich, Berlin, Oslo, Stuttgart, Geneva and Munich. The ruling party started this campaign, meanwhile the opposition parties also joined without delay. One gets the impression that Albin Kurti will become prime minister of the state of Baden-Württemberg, Bedri Hamza prime minister of South Tyrol, Donika Gërvalla head of the office of the state of Bavaria in Brussels, Fatmir Limaj minister of infrastructure in the Graubünden canton of Switzerland, Ramush Haradinaj director of the granting of licenses for gastronomy premises in the canton of Zürich.

While the opposition politicians have to pay for their own trips (probably from their party's coffers), it would be important to know whether the incessant visits of the rulers are paid for by their parties or from the state budget. If the latter happens, it would be scandalous.

Kosovo's politicians - especially those in power - have their place in Kosovo. They must appear in front of the citizens, communicate with them, explain what they have done in the last 4 years and what they have not accomplished, despite the astronomical promises. The campaign should take place in Dragash and not in Dortmund, in Malisheva and not in Munich, in Suharekë and not in Sion, in Gjakova and not in Geneva, in Vushtrri and Viti and not in Vienna.

This campaign moved to the West, and especially to Germany, Switzerland and Austria, where most of the emigrants from Kosovo live, is not a good signal. It is even a bad sign. Absolute priority should be enjoyed by the citizens of Kosovo, not the diaspora. Most of it is comfortable in the West. Most expats have jobs. They have health insurance. They have clean air and water. They should not send sick family members to Turkey for treatment. The food they eat is healthy. They can choose: do they want to go on vacation to Egypt, to a Greek island or to Kosovo or for a long weekend in New York.

It is understandable that expats worry about Kosovo, but not more than their family members living in Kosovo. If the concern of these diaspora people is so great, let them return and live in Kosovo. There is no love from a distance. Just as the politicians there should be dedicated to the citizens of Kosovo, the emigrants should also pay attention to integration. Although great strides have been made in the last two decades, the Kosovar diaspora still has a lot of work to do. A large part of expatriates continue to perform heavy physical work, and often their children do not manage to break away from their parents' world. The number of those who manage to qualify in professions is not that great. Positive examples that are presented to the public create an unrealistic picture. Unemployment and dependency on social assistance among the Albanian community in Switzerland, for example, is quite pronounced. Finally, it was announced that the authorities of the Aargau canton expelled a Kosovar family from Switzerland after they received 2008 thousand francs in social assistance between 2022 and 618.

These days, the opposition has accused the authorities of using Kosovo's diplomatic missions for electoral campaigns. Partly this is true. Officials go to rallies in embassy cars, which are not taxi services for the party. Diplomats are put in uncomfortable situations and some are so naive that the meetings of the authorities warn them on the official website of the embassy. But there are also diplomats who have integrity and refuse any contact with party activities in exile. The authorities can say, as they are trying to say, that it used to be worse. Yes, it was. Someone was having fun in the luxury hotels of St. Moritz, someone went to Vienna to the tailor to have the suit cut to size, someone was checked by a specialist doctor in Germany. Precisely because of these and many other corruption scandals, the parties in the opposition received the bill 4 years ago. But nearly half a million citizens have not voted for change only to witness repeated excesses.

In 2011, the well-known Swiss sociologist Thomas Held visited Kosovo. When he returned, he wrote a short column in which, among other things, he emphasized: "After four days of lectures, conversations and visits, the impression was created that Kosovo is becoming a 'failed state'." Even those who knew something more were shocked by the information on the ground: abject poverty, half of the working-age population unemployed, an economy dependent on the aid of the international community and the aid of family members living abroad, a culture of corruption that scares away investors. Educated young people are pushed to enter politics, because this way they can also benefit from the economy of clientelism. Others are so used to the salaries from humanitarian organizations that a job in the local economy is out of the question. The desire is to have an Audi A6, as others have from the gang that is now in power, as interlocutors call the state apparatus. (...) Overburdened schools work with reduced hours in shifts, universities produce a kind of high school diploma, fake enterprises are created for learning some professions. With these shortcomings, every year, more young people from Kosovo enter a job market that does not exist".

13 years have passed since the publication of Thomas Held's text. Many things have not changed since then. Meanwhile, polarization has reached its peak. Public debate has been reduced to verbal violence, distortion of facts, ferocity that can perhaps only be compared to the first post-war years. The noise at that time almost led Kosovo to civil war. Today, anyone who thinks rationally has no place in the public space occupied by knife-wielding propagandists.