By Veton Surroi
Kosovo as a consolidated electoral democracy is good news for the world. Now, the formation of a government is needed, without the luxury of procrastination or threats of paralysis. We live in a world more complex than ever before, and in it the luxury of political paralysis is not allowed.
If I had to understand the messages from the parliamentary elections just held in Kosovo on February 9th and convey them as a message to the world, it seems to me that the best form would be with these four key concepts.
1. Normality
The Republic of Kosovo held regular parliamentary elections within the constitutional deadline. The campaign, the organization of the elections (apart from the problem with the CEC website), the free expression of candidates in rallies and the media, the conduct of citizens and political parties passed without any incident. Moreover, in the northern part of Kosovo, Serb citizens voted for the first time without physical pressure from politically connected organized crime structures.
Normality doesn’t leave a lasting impression, especially when you start to get used to it. But in Kosovo less than 20 years ago, elections were held with industrial vote-rigging, and these came after the atmosphere of the previous elections, when in one of them (the 2002 municipal elections) the newly elected mayor, Ukë Bytyçi, was murdered.
Kosovo is now a consolidated electoral democracy, and this may seem like a kind of obligation that every state should be. But as such, it more or less sets itself apart from its neighbors.
2. Revolution that becomes evolution
In the 2021 elections, the Vetëvendosje Movement led an electoral revolution. Over half of Kosovo’s voters voted to stop the state capture, the industrial theft of Kosovo’s wealth (in money, land, and goods) that followed the industrial theft of votes, the degradation of the country’s future.
In the 2025 elections, the Vetevendosje Movement failed to repeat this result. Surely a more detailed analysis would show the most diverse reasons, where and why the 2021 votes went, but in my mind, this change constitutes a normal transition from revolution to evolution. The LVV received a mandate to show that politics should serve the citizens and not the enrichment and irresponsibility of politicians – something that is understandable in a democracy but was not until then. The LVV also received a mandate to extend the rule of the institutions of the Republic of Kosovo throughout the country – something that should have been understandable, but was not until then. And the LVV received a mandate to equalize Kosovo as a state vis-à-vis Serbia in the Brussels negotiation process – something that should have been understandable but was not implemented in reality.
In 2025, the Vetëvendosje Movement was rewarded for its work by a large number of votes (over 40 percent). But Kosovo has moved from an electoral revolution to a governing evolution. Revolutionary changes are no longer enough and evidence will be needed in every government department. Negotiating dignity or determination to extend the country’s sovereignty cannot cover up weaknesses in education or other departments.
Consolidation in an electoral democracy is the transition from electoral revolution to governing evolution, and this is the period that Kosovo has already entered.
The opposition parties have also played an important role in this consolidation. Two of them, with new leadership after the 2021 electoral revolution, in addition to the usual criticism of the government, have conducted campaigns with elaborate offers of solutions to the problems in the state and society. Both have been rewarded with an increase in votes, reversing the negative direction they had taken in 2021, but still far from challenging the leading political force.
3. Three tests of the electorate
In 2021, the behavior of the Kosovo electorate was tested. In the parliamentary elections, it gave the Vetëvendosje Movement more than half of the votes. A little more than half a year later, in the municipal elections, the vote overwhelmingly elected other political entities to lead the municipalities. The nature of the mandates was different – revolution in central government, evolution in municipal government. The electorate showed the nature of these mandates or adapted to them – it depends on how one looks at it.
In 2025, an unprecedented campaign was waged against the ruling party and its leader. This campaign was not by opposition parties, but by established groups in several media outlets – either profitably linked to the previous governments, or representing the special interests of their owners, or usually by combining the two. The campaign relied on insults, half-truths and untruths and created an environment of extreme polarization. The election rallies, voting day and election results, however, did not reflect the energy spent on this negative campaign for several months. This test of the electorate showed that it is far more mature than the noisy debate that takes place every night in some of the television studios.
In the 2025 elections, a political coalition advocating a conservative Islamic agenda emerged. The coalition did not win enough votes to participate in the Assembly. In the electorate testing, the idea of a party advocating a religious agenda did not pass, an important signal for the speculation about the influence of religion in politics in Kosovo and the misunderstanding that in Kosovo the issue of religion is an individual right, not an agenda of collective identity.
4. Government in times of upheaval
From these elections, with the result of which we will finally understand within a few days, as the final votes are counted, a new Government must be formed.
Although the numbers, at least as I write, do not provide clarity on the formation of the Government that they offered in the 2021 elections and, moreover, in the overcomplication that Kosovo has gotten itself into with the lack of reform for the election of the country’s president (which could affect the stability of governance in 2026), it seems to me important to have more sensitivity to the need for Kosovo to have a Government formed within a regular deadline after the certification of parliamentary mandates.
Although Kosovo has proven itself as a consolidated electoral democracy, although it has entered a normality, although its electorate has successfully passed the tests and challenges, although it has moved from electoral revolution to governing evolution, this country lives in 2025 in a world that is more complex than at any time since the Cold War. Geopolitical shocks are so great and potentially consequential that Kosovo does not have the luxury of going through political paralysis.
Source: Koha.net
