UNMIK on
air
Participation
of the Majority in 2004 elections
By Gezim
Kasapolli
October Parliamentary elections are the fourth elections to
be held in Kosovo in the past five years. Political analysts say this election
is a major test for Kosovo’s Albanian majority who are faced with mounting
pressure to fulfill the 8 Standards that moves Kosovo towards a more Western
European model.
But, have the elected
institutions done enough to warrant the votes they gained during the previous
election cycle?
And, will the majority Albanian
electorate actually participate?
Hello and welcome. You are listening to UNMIK on air with
Jackson Allers and Valon Syla.
The last survey conducted by OSCE showed that the
participation of the majority population in Kosovo has dropped significantly,
from 79% in the first elections to 54% in the 2002 Assembly elections.
The sidewalks of Pristina are filled with café speak of
unemployment, corruption, rising clouds from the electric plants in nearby
Obilic municipality – and - included in the discussion is a growing skepticism
in the election process.
UNMIK on air asked a wide range of Kosovo Albanians how this
frustration would affect their participation in October’s elections.
Arsim Gashi, 33
Cut 1. No, I will not participate. The reason is that I
don’t know who to vote for because they are all the same. There is no reason
for me to vote for any of those candidates.
Cut 2. Yes, I will vote but
I hope that my vote will go to those people who should get it and not to those
who ARE FAILING TO show any concern for us. We hope for changes but not FOR big
changes because they DO NOT SEEM TO work for KOSOVO as much as they should.
Hysen Hajdari 36
Cut 3. track 3.No, I will not participate. The reason for
that is that I don’t see any significant changes in the next elections.
Although the International Community has taken many hits
with regards to their role in voter apathy, during interviews for this segment,
testimony from Kosovo Albanians confirmed a lack of trust in the effectiveness
of Kosovo’s Institutions.
Repeated calls to representatives of Kosovo’s Government
failed to illicit a response on the subject of voter apathy.
Meanwhile, organizations in Kosovo tasked with energizing
the voting public, say the issue of voter participation is complex and that
informal surveys, like the one conducted by UNMIK On-Air, are not
representative of the total picture.
Yll Hoxha is a local analyst for Kosovo Action for Civil
Initiatives or KACI, a local NGO that has been studying voter
demographics for more than 3 years.
Cut 3. There are A few
reasons for that, first is the non-functioning of institutions. As such, the
citizens don’t find it reasonable to vote for those institutions because of the
loss of trust in those elected institutions, and this is a fact. The second
reason was the closed list system of voting. The way this closed list was set
up, it made it unappealing for the citizen to go out and vote. It was simply
not attractive. And third, the lack of competencies for local institutions
makes them, the institutions, irrelevant for the citizens.
How true is Yll Hoxha’s reasoning? Bernard Vrban, OSCE
Spokesperson says that it is actually up to the local political players
themselves to make it worthwhile for people to come out and to cast their
votes.
Cut 4. 04:09 people tend
to think that the government and the Assembly of Kosovo do not have the
competencies. It is quite clear that they do have competencies and the
assembly, the government and the political parties should let people know that
yes we do have competencies, these are the competencies that we have and this
is what we will do regarding those competencies and that is going to help bring
more people out.
Bringing people out to vote is very important says Hoxha,
and groups like Kosovo’s Action for Civil Initiatives are galvanized around the
idea of the potential benefits the elections will bring to Kosovo Society.
Cut 5. We hope that the
2004 elections will be conducted with the same spirit of democracy and
tolerance and acceptance for culture that was shown in previous elections. We
hope that during this election cycle, something effective will be produced that
will push Kosovo forward, which was not the case previously.
Demonstrated participation
in the elections process is the only way for the people of Kosovo and the for
the Kosovo Albanian majority to strengthen ties to western democratic ideals -
this according to leading political think tanks like the Brussels-based,
International Crisis Group
And with the Status
discussions to take place in mid-2005, the honus of responsibility for change
is even more in the hands of the voting populace – whether majority or minority
populations are concerned.
This concludes this
edition of UNMIK on air. Thanks for listening and stay tuned.