D4D Institute
D4D’s mission is to influence the development of public policy in order to accelerate socio-economic development, improve governance, and strengthen democratic culture in Kosovo.
Supervisors: Shpend Emini
Phone: +381 38 224 143
Address: Zenel Salihu Str. No. 28 Floor 5/13 Prishtinë, Kosovë
Supervisors: Shpend Emini
Phone: +381 38 224 143
Address: Zenel Salihu Str. No. 28 Floor 5/13 Prishtinë, Kosovë
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During the years 2014/15, Kosovo experienced one of the largest emigration waves since the war, considering that more than 100 thousand people left the country. The official Kosovar statistics for 2015 estimate 74,343 of its inhabitants migrated from Kosovo. The large wave of emigration posed a dire challenge for Western Countries, especially for Germany being the first choice for the migrants. Kosovo’s challenge was about to begin as a high number of returnees were to come back, either voluntarily or involuntarily.
Despite the fact that many returned individuals have received support from public and international organization, there is limited knowledge on the impact of the interventions in their reintegration process. Thus, the aim of this paper is to evaluate the current policy impact and produce recommendations to optimize the process of reintegrating the returned migrants in Kosovo.
Only one in eight women in Kosovo are either looking for a job or employed , and this ranks Kosovo as one of the countries with the lowest women participation rate in Europe . Exclusion of women from the workforce is one of the key bottlenecks to the overall development in Kosovo.
The survey, whose details are explained in the methodology, has shown that care responsibilities for children and elderly, and overall lack of employment opportunities are the main issues that hinder women’s inclusion in the labor market. Most of the respondents agree that women are discriminated in the labor market, and more importantly they attribute the socio and cultural factors such as the patriarchal mindset, and provisions of maternity leave, as main variables that contribute to discrimination.
The report serves as a roadmap for policymakers at large as it offers concrete steps that once undertaken unlock the potential, and catalyze the process of development. The policy recommendations that this paper purports based on the findings are improving elderly facilities, providing better and more affordable childcare, tailored made job-training based on needs assessment, incentivizing women owned businesses. Given a political will to work upon these recommendations, concrete results would be shown in our road towards fostering the countries overall development through inclusion of women in the labor market.
The main findings from the survey are as:
- More 53.2% of the respondents claim that the main reason for women’s exclusion of the labor market is that they have care responsibilities for the children and elderly in the family, whilst 30% list lack of employment opportunities as the reason for women exclusion.
- More than half of the respondents (60%) agree that women face discrimination in the process of employment and list patriarchal society (43%) and maternity leave (26%) as the main reasons for the discrimination
- In terms of incentivizing women to become active in the labor market, around 33% of the respondents think that equal treatment between men and women is the solution, followed by 25% that list equal pay for equal responsibilities as a solution.
When asked whose responsibility should it be when it comes to child care, 44% believe that it should be equally divided between the parents. However, 29% answered that the mother should be solely responsible, and only 3% believe that the father should be responsible solely.
Mogherini’s five-year term could realistically resolve most of the issues that poison relations between Serbia and Kosovo. In the next stage of dialogue, we recommend a three-pronged approach: (1) A formal channel of communication between Prishtina and the northern municipalities; (2) A technical dialogue between Prishtina and Belgrade focusing on the implementation, and (3) A political dialogue between Prishtina and Belgrade broaching new topics.
relationship of citizens with their representatives is at the
heart of what democracy is about. As most of us tend our
everyday affairs, it is discomforting if those we have
entrusted the public purse to do not stand for our interest.
Hence the title of this paper, “Translation of Trust”, which
we endeavour to measure.
Kosovo’s young state is often compared to a young baby, but
nowhere is this as true as it its democratization efforts. The
transition has been patchy with frequent setbacks. Kosovo’s
nascent democracy indeed needs to be nurtured like a
newborn. This involves taking stock of its progress and
asking difficult questions. The road ahead is only possible if
we honestly assess the current situation for this is our point
of departure.
We did not only intend to take a snapshot at the current
situation, but to look at the trend. In our bid to understand
dynamics of electoral behaviour, most democracy-related
questions have been cross-tabulated by various
demographic features.
The first section describes the methodology with some brief
demographic remarks. The substance of the paper is
organised in five thematic chapters (i) representation, (ii)
participation, (iii) trust in elections, (iv) electoral system
and voter behaviour, and (v) leadership expectations.
Instead, how about a simple A4 document with tabular comparisons?
Has the incidence of a disease or, for example, infant mortality rate decreased over the years, or the labour productivity improved? We need tobe able to see these numbers in a simple way. I can sort of imagine being able to follow the performance of authorities with a bar. We like to track progress of many aspects of our lives (e.g. how fast a file downloads to our computer). How about us being able to track the progress of public institutions that we have elected to spend the money that we set aside for public affairs? How about being able to see whether attendance of MPs has improved?
Greater accountability improves overall functioning of governance as well as will contribute to higher participation and democracy. For greater accountability there is a continuing need to monitor the performance of the government and public agencies of various sectors. It is important that such public scrutiny is simple and the society can measure their work from year to year.
This objective performance monitoring may ultimately facilitate an increase of pressure coming from citizens, businesses, civil society, media, opposition parties and Parliament. Establishing a good information system to monitor the performance of the government in the key sectors is even more crucial for Kosovo where data dissemination practices are weak and access to data, in general, is very limited. This project is about constructive and evidence-based pressure by informed civil society and public. D4D has initiated the creation of an information system that measures over 250 indicators from year-to-year basis. Spotting trends and measuring progress leads to results-oriented policy-making which is by far superior to the current tracking. More specifically, D4D also hopes that this will help instil a culture of external evaluation and public scrutiny, instill a culture of monitoring and reflection over policies, and create ownership of governance.
This publication is organized in four sections: governance, economy, social development and rule of law. Each section is divided into sub-sections which includes five to ten key performance indicators, calculates the difference of these indicators during the past year and measures overall progress. Finally, detailed lists of sources are listed in the end of each section for each performance indicator. We hope that these indicators will serve as base-lines for future measurements over the years.
This is the second edition of the performance indicators with some novelties. Values for 2010 have been added for indicators that data has been published. The number of indicators measured has doubled and chapters and clusters were reorganized better. On some indicators, Kosovo’s performance was not only measured over time, but was also compared to that of the region.
Each side still has a perception that its gain can only come at the loss of the other side. The national interest is short-sightedly defined as undermining of the other side’s national interest. The goal of this analysis by New Policy Center (NPC) from Belgrade and Project on Ethnic Relations Kosovo (PER-K) from Prishtina is to prove that this claim is profoundly false and that both countries must realize their interest in helping each other to become functional. Although highly unpopular, we believe that the two sides are in the same boat, but are yet to realize this. This paper focuses entirely on the future, delineates scenarios, and recommends how they can ensure that this transformation indeed occurs.
The paper was driven by the following research question: What type of process is this Dialogue, and can it deliver an outcome that both sides will ultimately cherish? It is not the first time that a conflict seems intractable, but history indicates that many countries that underwent vicious wars are now strongest allies and lead others into cooperation and prosperity.
tumultuous and saw numerous changes. Kosovo’s electoral democracy has not built solid ground yet, while the changes were introduced so frequently that it is difficult to discern and isolate their effects from other intervening factors.
The sequence of twelve elections (in seven election years) provides a basis for initial analysis. A careful look at trends may be useful to initiate a discussion that is well grounded on facts and figures. Trends can illustrate processes and outcomes that cannot be spotted with a naked eye. We hope this first attempt to analyze trends after 2010 will add to the quantity and quality of the public discourse on ongoing election reforms.
EC’s assessments of Kosovo’s election authority as having made ‘limited progress’ in the past three years are worrisome as are the numerous cases of violations. Other independent voices were even more critical, hence there is no doubt that the election management institutions must be much more attentive to repairing at least the weak spots that have been well documented.
Data provided by the CEC is often incomplete and presented in formats that make comparison difficult, expensive and time consuming. Few organizations can afford to type mountains of figures from unfriendly PDFs with missing data to quantitative databases hence the dearth of studies that help understand our electoral experience.
The trend analysis presented below takes into consideration changes over the years that have affected the electoral process most. The study starts by looking at the most fundamental aspects of the electoral process such as movements in electorate, voters’ list maintenance, and moves to analyze overall trends of invalid, spoiled, by-mail and conditional ballots. Overall party trends are analyzed next, followed by a review of their dependence on leaders, the effect of open lists and finally compares the rate of female MPs elected by merit versus the quota.
The data presented in this paper is only the beginning of a comprehensive study that needs to take place to inform political parties on the gaps and bottlenecks, as well as advantages and disadvantages of various electoral tools that Kosovo has tried in the past. Short of such a detailed reflection, election authorities and decision-makers will be inadequately equipped to avoid pitfalls that may be lurking ahead of future rounds of our democratic exercises.
D4D will continue to delve much deeper and present more findings in future publications. Trends that are presented here should instigate a more qualitative discussion on what reforms Kosovo needs in the future, for its electoral system as well as for the process.
stage of its work and has prepared a package of recommendations, which have been sent on to a smaller group responsible for drafting the new law. The analysis examines the process, the work of the Committee and the other institutions involved, as well as the amendments resulting from this process. A whopping 150 amendments have been prepared, but few of them bring about real improvements. If the remaining weeks are not utilised to make essential changes to regulating the electoral process, there are no reasons to expect fraud reduction. As it stands right now, the reform is but ‘make-up’ that hides but does not treat electoral ‘wrinkles’. Moreover,
if several sets of elections are held in one day, as some intend, then the level of election fraud will be record high.
The research questions for this paper were: has this Committee fulfilled its mandate? Do the recommendations offered by the Committee guarantee a better process? Have the topics that impact directly upon the electoral process been treated seriously? What role did the international community play? How did the reform begin and where are we now?
The main problems of past elections have not been addressed adequately, including the main topics which keep the whole process in suspense. Three categories of issues which have not
been dealt with properly are:
(a) Systemic topics, if unresolved, will make it difficult to tackle technical issues;
(b) Appeals/complains, fines and penalties;
(c) Electoral process that has allowed masive fraud to take place.
Postponing the decision-making on the electoral system has raised concerns from the smaller political parties and the civil society. It is often claimed that the deferral may have made for two reasons:
(a) To allow less time to repair the process and prevent of fraud; and
(b) Enable the parties to avoid the criticism for having chosen an unpopular system.
Electoral justice and administration are extremely important because they are essential to preventing abuse. It is important to highlight that the public perceived the reform as means
to prevent electoral fraud and avoid the type institutional impasse that occurred after the 2010 elections.
Kosovo’s political and economic spheres. Their low
participation reduces their influence on policy decisions,
which manifests in their inability to pursue their own
interests. The Serb community’s prospects in Kosovo are
largely dependent on integration into Kosovo’s institutional
life and society. The issues under deliberation are less
political and more practical. Given the fact that the public
sector is the biggest employer in Kosovo, other than joining
the civil service, there are no significant opportunities for
young Serbs.
This paper assesses the prospects for young Kosovo Serbs in
terms of employment, representation, motivation, skills, and
education. The report identifies challenges and
opportunities in keeping Serb youth in Kosovo. The lack of
jobs, language skills, desire for migration to Serbia for
education, the need to travel for basic services, challenges
and opportunities to retain the Serb youth in Kosovo. The
lack of jobs, lack of language skills, the strong desire to
migrate to Serbia, the and the sense of political uncertainty
keeps the community in a state of permanent limbo.
Some Serbs claim they “go to bed with their bags ready,” a
statement which illustrates their uncertainty in having a
place in Kosovo’s future. However, a growing number of
Serbs are building and refurbishing their houses, a sign of
their determination to stay. To encourage these efforts, the
central government and local municipalities need to work
with the community to renew and support this newfound
optimism.
Statistics are scarce and inaccurate in Kosovo, but data on
the Serb community are either non-existent or outdated,
which presents significant challenges to adequate policy making. In order to obtain a more accurate picture of the
situation, this paper investigates issues affecting Serb youth
in Kosovo and offers recommendations for how to increase
job opportunities.
This paper focuses on the Serb communities south of the
Ibër/Ibar River. Given certain conditions, these findings are
largely applicable to the municipalities in the north. Even
without the northern challenge, problems affecting the Serb
community are numerous. Despite the fact that there are
solutions available, the key challenge is lack of political will.
prerequisites to a free, fair and competitive election. The
issue of voters’ list inaccuracy has been a recurring one in
Kosovo, with complaints being voiced on this topic before
and after every electoral process.
This paper presents the results of a recently conducted audit
of the voters’ list of the Kaçanik municipality in order to
measure the scale of inaccuracies and irregularities and
present recommendations to address them.
The voters’ list is based on an extract of the civil registry
created and maintained by the Ministry of Internal Affairs
(MIA). The civil registry database includes all citizens who
have received their national identity cards (NIC), which are
issued at the age of 16 by the Ministry’s Department of
Public Documents (DPD).
The regular practice for each election cycle is that the MIA
provides the Central Election Commission (CEC) a recent
extract of the civil registry of all voters above age 18. This is
to suggest that the flaws with the voters’ list reflect flaws in
the civil registry, and hence that is where improvements
need to take place.
To carry out the audit, Democracy for Development (D4D)
set up a team of 17 verifiers who during May and June of
2012 went door-to-door across the Municipality of Kaçanik.
Equipped with the most recently updated voters’ list of each
polling centre, they verified whether persons found living in
each house they visited were found in the voters’ list, under
their current address.
While Kaçanik may be only one case, this paper cites the
insight it could provide for the organizing of similar audits
across Kosovo. A more accurate voters’ list throughout the
rest of Kosovo can greatly improve the voting process and
stamp out opportunities for manipulations at the ballot box.
It should be emphasized that there was anecdotal evidence
of major problems even before the audit. As a blatant
example, the late President of Kosovo and perhaps the most
recognizable public figure of the last two decades, Ibrahim
Rugova, could still be found on the voters’ list several years
after his passing. Several other reports, including one
written earlier by an author who is now with D4D, have
pointed out inaccuracies that short of reliable data were
often treated as speculation.
inflated prices of essential products in Kosovo. In addition
to explaining the underlying forces at play which lead to
higher prices, the paper intends to influence policy makers
and push them to adopt corrective actions.
Under the framework of the “Think and Link” Regional
Policy Programme, Democracy for Development Institute
conducted a study in order to identify the hidden tax and the
potential for boosting purchasing power in Kosovo. Through
an analysis of the prices of particular products in the country
and other countries in the region, this paper aimed to assess
whether there are price fixing and other shady practices in
the market.
The level of poverty in Kosovo remains high with 34.5% of
the population living in general poverty.1 Official
unemployment is reported at approximately 37%.2 Coupled
with the fact that more than 70% of imports are fast-moving
consumer goods,3 consumers in the country are forced to
pay much more than those in the region.4
The net trade balance continues to show a high deficit due to
the low level of domestic production, with Kosovo
continuing to import most of its consumer goods. As
presented in the figure below, in a one-year-period until
September 2012, the net trade deficit further increased with
total imports increasing and total exports decreasing.
The result is a consumer price index (CPI) with a steady
upward trend for over seven years. Food and non-alcoholic
beverages carry the highest weight as a share of the CPI,
followed by transport, clothing and footwear, housing,
water, electricity and other essential consumer goods
observed during the extraordinary mayoral elections in
Ferizaj and Kaçanik. The paper utilizes qualitative and
quantitative reports from observers as collected before and
during Election Day. The analysis covers all the stages of the
electoral process beginning from the observation of the
Central Election Commission in its preparations, the
campaign, Election Day and the certification of results.
As an active contributor to the election reform process,
Democracy for Development (D4D) Institute teamed up
with Initiative for Progress (INPO) to observe the election
campaign and election process in both municipalities. The
Volunteer Observation Mission (VOM) fielded the largest
and most widespread independent observation mission for
the extraordinary elections in Ferizaj and Kaçanik, with an
observer in every single polling station.
The paper comes around half a year after the elections, but
its aim was not to report on specific violations. The purpose
is to analyze the process in greater depth and draw lessons
for future elections. The paper reports on the integrity of the
process and suggests improvements that should be adopted
for implementation by the authorities and for inclusion in
the legislation under reform.
It must be noted that organizing mayoral by-elections in one
municipality at a time should not be taken as barometer of
the process and presents the best-case scenario. Compared
to full-fledged elections, mayoral elections are significantly
less challenging for the authorities to organize.
Their small scale allowed observers to scrutinize the process.
However, the presence of worrisome phenomena only
confirms the suspicion that given the current setup, Kosovowide elections would see major problems.
In addition to election observation, D4D regularly observes
the work of the Central Election Commission (CEC), and
during their functioning, it observed the work of the
Parliamentary Committee on Election Reform and the
Working Group on Election Reform. D4D also set up a civil
society Forum for Democracy that has deliberated and
reached consensus on numerous topics related to electoral
legislation.
Observation of the afore-mentioned institutions and
preparations for the two mayoral races enabled the civil
society to include two main changes to prevent fraud before
taking place. Two last-minute changes introduced under
pressure from the civil society somewhat restored credibility
in the process. The last section of this paper recommends
additional changes to the authorities
of opportunities to get ahead in society is inequitable and
whether this phenomenon has amounted to state capture.
State capture occurs when state resources and institutions
are used for private ends. Political patronage is a means to
state capture and refers to political party interference in the
allocation of public jobs and resources for political gain.
Patronage has various negative effects, mostly in reducing
the quality and impartiality of civil servants. Crucial to this
research, patronage hinders social mobility by hampering
access to public sector jobs on the basis of merit, as a means
to improve one’s socio-economic status.
Patronage is among the many challenges facing Kosovo’s
transitional democracy today. Political and personal
connections, as opposed to academic and professional
achievement, have become the primary means of getting
ahead. Patronage in Kosovo is stifling social mobility by
excluding meriting individuals from accessing public sector
jobs and by imposing a glass ceiling on career
advancements.
The aim of this study is to analyse patronage networks and
their impact on social mobility in Kosovo. To this end, we
replicated the methodology that was used in the seminal
2012 study by Kopecký, Scherlis, and Spirova on patronage
in European democracies, and applied it to the context of
Kosovo. Our research methodology consists of a survey of
experts, which we complimented with a review of academic
and policy literature and news reports. In our interviews, we
asked experts to rate the extent, both in terms of breadth
and depth, of patronage in Kosovo. We also inquired about
what its underlying motivations and modes of operation are,
as well what effects it has on social mobility in the society.
We found that patronage is pervasive in Kosovo. Experts
Patronage and its impact on Social Mobility in Kosovo almost unanimously expressed that patronage permeates all
institution and affects all levels of jobs. As such, patronage
appears to be far more pervasive in Kosovo than in any
other European country surveyed by Kopecky, Scherlis, and
Spirova (2012). Moreover, our expert interviews showed
that the motivation for patronage in Kosovo is a
combination of the desire to reward party activists and
voters, and a means to control state institutions and
resources.
Finally, we found that that patronage heavily hampers social
mobility in Kosovo. The majority of our respondents
qualified of unlikely that an individual enter the civil service
or rise through its ranks based on merit alone. Conversely,
political or personal connections are sine qua non.
Five policy recommendations are proposed to limit the
spread and influence of patronage in Kosovo. In particular,
we recommend that Kosovo: (i) continue the current
reforms and fully-implement the Civil Service Law, (ii)
generalise and standardise meritocratic entrance
examinations for all public institutions, (iii) introduce
periodic performance assessments for all civil servants and
public employees, (iv) gradually reduce the number of civil
servants and introduce a performance based salary scheme,
and finally (v) reinvigorate the Kosovo School of Public
Administration for pre and in-service training for all public
employees
on the values that stand out. We worry about the worrisome results and get little comfort from the rest of the normal results. Somehow, we seem not to care about the health of the nation at the same rate. Inspired by this comparison,
this brief policy paper outlines the most prevalent and recurring electoral manipulations in Kosovo.
Critical reports such as those that we usually publish have a major draw-back for they are seen bythe authorities as too critical and not giving due praise to positive developments. However, it is the very nature of ‘check-up’ reports to
improve public affairs by focusing on areas that need improvement most. It only intends to help the patient
improve its outlook.
This paper comes after several years of electoral work by D4D including research, observation, following of trends, or analysis of results. Numerous publications focused on the electoral system, the process, the work of the parliamentary committee on electoral reform, voter lists, and the work of the CEC.
Electoral fraud marred the 2010 elections in the country
and led to a six-month institutional deadlock, the consequences of which Kosovo still suffers. A repeat of such levels of manipulation would almost certainly incend political violence.
The political leadership has engaged in a half-hearted reform during the past year. Unfortunately, they focused only on systemic solutions which serve them to maximize political gain. In this sense, the resulting reforms were motivated by little more than political party calculations.
The 2012 EU Feasibility Study concluded that Kosovo’s elections were followed with serious deficiencies.
The international community sees the importance of fraud prevention and advises Kosovo to simplify its electoral system.
There is some improvement of electoral management in Kosovo, as noted by the progress of the mayoral by elections
in Ferizaj and Kacanik in 2012, and by a more positive trend of electoral justice.
From 2011 to 2013, policy-makers had a unique opportunity
to undertake comprehensive reforms without the distraction
of electoral populism.
During these three years, the electoral reform started and
restarted several times, each time to hit a deadlock. Each
time reform restarted, it rekindled our hopes to see it
unlock, but the reformist ambition were gradually reduced.
Media debates started to refer to the process of electoral
‘deform’.
The last time we expected some modest reform was the
Spring of 2013 when two documents were published. A twopage
document reflects a list of principles drafted by the
member states of the European Union which now awaits an
answer by the Kosovar leadership.
The other document reflected the opinion of the party
leaders who had begun to harmonise their positions. This
document was made public by AKR, the party which hosted
the last meeting of the leaders’ forum. Both documents are
indicators of the direction that reform can take after the
municipal elections when discussion is expected to resume.
northern Kosovo (as differently as this outcome may be assessed by each of them), but also to prepare for contingencies.
The voter turnout in the four Serb majority northern municipalities is as important as their relations with Prishtina afterwards. While the northern politicians have embraced a passive boycott, several violent incidents herald a climate of
active intimidation that could seriously reduce turnout or potentially halt the electoral process altogether. The EU seems willing to accept a fairly low turnout as a sufficient legal basis for the new municipal institutions. However, it is hard to see any serious contingency preparations – a Plan B – to put things
back on track in case of derailment.
The paper looks at the challenges ahead and analyses the latest
developments among the north Kosovo Serb political elite and the roles played by Belgrade and Prishtina. It ends with a consideration of four scenarios for the elections and their
aftermath (summarised on the next page).
During the years 2014/15, Kosovo experienced one of the largest emigration waves since the war, considering that more than 100 thousand people left the country. The official Kosovar statistics for 2015 estimate 74,343 of its inhabitants migrated from Kosovo. The large wave of emigration posed a dire challenge for Western Countries, especially for Germany being the first choice for the migrants. Kosovo’s challenge was about to begin as a high number of returnees were to come back, either voluntarily or involuntarily.
Despite the fact that many returned individuals have received support from public and international organization, there is limited knowledge on the impact of the interventions in their reintegration process. Thus, the aim of this paper is to evaluate the current policy impact and produce recommendations to optimize the process of reintegrating the returned migrants in Kosovo.
Only one in eight women in Kosovo are either looking for a job or employed , and this ranks Kosovo as one of the countries with the lowest women participation rate in Europe . Exclusion of women from the workforce is one of the key bottlenecks to the overall development in Kosovo.
The survey, whose details are explained in the methodology, has shown that care responsibilities for children and elderly, and overall lack of employment opportunities are the main issues that hinder women’s inclusion in the labor market. Most of the respondents agree that women are discriminated in the labor market, and more importantly they attribute the socio and cultural factors such as the patriarchal mindset, and provisions of maternity leave, as main variables that contribute to discrimination.
The report serves as a roadmap for policymakers at large as it offers concrete steps that once undertaken unlock the potential, and catalyze the process of development. The policy recommendations that this paper purports based on the findings are improving elderly facilities, providing better and more affordable childcare, tailored made job-training based on needs assessment, incentivizing women owned businesses. Given a political will to work upon these recommendations, concrete results would be shown in our road towards fostering the countries overall development through inclusion of women in the labor market.
The main findings from the survey are as:
- More 53.2% of the respondents claim that the main reason for women’s exclusion of the labor market is that they have care responsibilities for the children and elderly in the family, whilst 30% list lack of employment opportunities as the reason for women exclusion.
- More than half of the respondents (60%) agree that women face discrimination in the process of employment and list patriarchal society (43%) and maternity leave (26%) as the main reasons for the discrimination
- In terms of incentivizing women to become active in the labor market, around 33% of the respondents think that equal treatment between men and women is the solution, followed by 25% that list equal pay for equal responsibilities as a solution.
When asked whose responsibility should it be when it comes to child care, 44% believe that it should be equally divided between the parents. However, 29% answered that the mother should be solely responsible, and only 3% believe that the father should be responsible solely.
Mogherini’s five-year term could realistically resolve most of the issues that poison relations between Serbia and Kosovo. In the next stage of dialogue, we recommend a three-pronged approach: (1) A formal channel of communication between Prishtina and the northern municipalities; (2) A technical dialogue between Prishtina and Belgrade focusing on the implementation, and (3) A political dialogue between Prishtina and Belgrade broaching new topics.
relationship of citizens with their representatives is at the
heart of what democracy is about. As most of us tend our
everyday affairs, it is discomforting if those we have
entrusted the public purse to do not stand for our interest.
Hence the title of this paper, “Translation of Trust”, which
we endeavour to measure.
Kosovo’s young state is often compared to a young baby, but
nowhere is this as true as it its democratization efforts. The
transition has been patchy with frequent setbacks. Kosovo’s
nascent democracy indeed needs to be nurtured like a
newborn. This involves taking stock of its progress and
asking difficult questions. The road ahead is only possible if
we honestly assess the current situation for this is our point
of departure.
We did not only intend to take a snapshot at the current
situation, but to look at the trend. In our bid to understand
dynamics of electoral behaviour, most democracy-related
questions have been cross-tabulated by various
demographic features.
The first section describes the methodology with some brief
demographic remarks. The substance of the paper is
organised in five thematic chapters (i) representation, (ii)
participation, (iii) trust in elections, (iv) electoral system
and voter behaviour, and (v) leadership expectations.
Instead, how about a simple A4 document with tabular comparisons?
Has the incidence of a disease or, for example, infant mortality rate decreased over the years, or the labour productivity improved? We need tobe able to see these numbers in a simple way. I can sort of imagine being able to follow the performance of authorities with a bar. We like to track progress of many aspects of our lives (e.g. how fast a file downloads to our computer). How about us being able to track the progress of public institutions that we have elected to spend the money that we set aside for public affairs? How about being able to see whether attendance of MPs has improved?
Greater accountability improves overall functioning of governance as well as will contribute to higher participation and democracy. For greater accountability there is a continuing need to monitor the performance of the government and public agencies of various sectors. It is important that such public scrutiny is simple and the society can measure their work from year to year.
This objective performance monitoring may ultimately facilitate an increase of pressure coming from citizens, businesses, civil society, media, opposition parties and Parliament. Establishing a good information system to monitor the performance of the government in the key sectors is even more crucial for Kosovo where data dissemination practices are weak and access to data, in general, is very limited. This project is about constructive and evidence-based pressure by informed civil society and public. D4D has initiated the creation of an information system that measures over 250 indicators from year-to-year basis. Spotting trends and measuring progress leads to results-oriented policy-making which is by far superior to the current tracking. More specifically, D4D also hopes that this will help instil a culture of external evaluation and public scrutiny, instill a culture of monitoring and reflection over policies, and create ownership of governance.
This publication is organized in four sections: governance, economy, social development and rule of law. Each section is divided into sub-sections which includes five to ten key performance indicators, calculates the difference of these indicators during the past year and measures overall progress. Finally, detailed lists of sources are listed in the end of each section for each performance indicator. We hope that these indicators will serve as base-lines for future measurements over the years.
This is the second edition of the performance indicators with some novelties. Values for 2010 have been added for indicators that data has been published. The number of indicators measured has doubled and chapters and clusters were reorganized better. On some indicators, Kosovo’s performance was not only measured over time, but was also compared to that of the region.
Each side still has a perception that its gain can only come at the loss of the other side. The national interest is short-sightedly defined as undermining of the other side’s national interest. The goal of this analysis by New Policy Center (NPC) from Belgrade and Project on Ethnic Relations Kosovo (PER-K) from Prishtina is to prove that this claim is profoundly false and that both countries must realize their interest in helping each other to become functional. Although highly unpopular, we believe that the two sides are in the same boat, but are yet to realize this. This paper focuses entirely on the future, delineates scenarios, and recommends how they can ensure that this transformation indeed occurs.
The paper was driven by the following research question: What type of process is this Dialogue, and can it deliver an outcome that both sides will ultimately cherish? It is not the first time that a conflict seems intractable, but history indicates that many countries that underwent vicious wars are now strongest allies and lead others into cooperation and prosperity.
tumultuous and saw numerous changes. Kosovo’s electoral democracy has not built solid ground yet, while the changes were introduced so frequently that it is difficult to discern and isolate their effects from other intervening factors.
The sequence of twelve elections (in seven election years) provides a basis for initial analysis. A careful look at trends may be useful to initiate a discussion that is well grounded on facts and figures. Trends can illustrate processes and outcomes that cannot be spotted with a naked eye. We hope this first attempt to analyze trends after 2010 will add to the quantity and quality of the public discourse on ongoing election reforms.
EC’s assessments of Kosovo’s election authority as having made ‘limited progress’ in the past three years are worrisome as are the numerous cases of violations. Other independent voices were even more critical, hence there is no doubt that the election management institutions must be much more attentive to repairing at least the weak spots that have been well documented.
Data provided by the CEC is often incomplete and presented in formats that make comparison difficult, expensive and time consuming. Few organizations can afford to type mountains of figures from unfriendly PDFs with missing data to quantitative databases hence the dearth of studies that help understand our electoral experience.
The trend analysis presented below takes into consideration changes over the years that have affected the electoral process most. The study starts by looking at the most fundamental aspects of the electoral process such as movements in electorate, voters’ list maintenance, and moves to analyze overall trends of invalid, spoiled, by-mail and conditional ballots. Overall party trends are analyzed next, followed by a review of their dependence on leaders, the effect of open lists and finally compares the rate of female MPs elected by merit versus the quota.
The data presented in this paper is only the beginning of a comprehensive study that needs to take place to inform political parties on the gaps and bottlenecks, as well as advantages and disadvantages of various electoral tools that Kosovo has tried in the past. Short of such a detailed reflection, election authorities and decision-makers will be inadequately equipped to avoid pitfalls that may be lurking ahead of future rounds of our democratic exercises.
D4D will continue to delve much deeper and present more findings in future publications. Trends that are presented here should instigate a more qualitative discussion on what reforms Kosovo needs in the future, for its electoral system as well as for the process.
stage of its work and has prepared a package of recommendations, which have been sent on to a smaller group responsible for drafting the new law. The analysis examines the process, the work of the Committee and the other institutions involved, as well as the amendments resulting from this process. A whopping 150 amendments have been prepared, but few of them bring about real improvements. If the remaining weeks are not utilised to make essential changes to regulating the electoral process, there are no reasons to expect fraud reduction. As it stands right now, the reform is but ‘make-up’ that hides but does not treat electoral ‘wrinkles’. Moreover,
if several sets of elections are held in one day, as some intend, then the level of election fraud will be record high.
The research questions for this paper were: has this Committee fulfilled its mandate? Do the recommendations offered by the Committee guarantee a better process? Have the topics that impact directly upon the electoral process been treated seriously? What role did the international community play? How did the reform begin and where are we now?
The main problems of past elections have not been addressed adequately, including the main topics which keep the whole process in suspense. Three categories of issues which have not
been dealt with properly are:
(a) Systemic topics, if unresolved, will make it difficult to tackle technical issues;
(b) Appeals/complains, fines and penalties;
(c) Electoral process that has allowed masive fraud to take place.
Postponing the decision-making on the electoral system has raised concerns from the smaller political parties and the civil society. It is often claimed that the deferral may have made for two reasons:
(a) To allow less time to repair the process and prevent of fraud; and
(b) Enable the parties to avoid the criticism for having chosen an unpopular system.
Electoral justice and administration are extremely important because they are essential to preventing abuse. It is important to highlight that the public perceived the reform as means
to prevent electoral fraud and avoid the type institutional impasse that occurred after the 2010 elections.
Kosovo’s political and economic spheres. Their low
participation reduces their influence on policy decisions,
which manifests in their inability to pursue their own
interests. The Serb community’s prospects in Kosovo are
largely dependent on integration into Kosovo’s institutional
life and society. The issues under deliberation are less
political and more practical. Given the fact that the public
sector is the biggest employer in Kosovo, other than joining
the civil service, there are no significant opportunities for
young Serbs.
This paper assesses the prospects for young Kosovo Serbs in
terms of employment, representation, motivation, skills, and
education. The report identifies challenges and
opportunities in keeping Serb youth in Kosovo. The lack of
jobs, language skills, desire for migration to Serbia for
education, the need to travel for basic services, challenges
and opportunities to retain the Serb youth in Kosovo. The
lack of jobs, lack of language skills, the strong desire to
migrate to Serbia, the and the sense of political uncertainty
keeps the community in a state of permanent limbo.
Some Serbs claim they “go to bed with their bags ready,” a
statement which illustrates their uncertainty in having a
place in Kosovo’s future. However, a growing number of
Serbs are building and refurbishing their houses, a sign of
their determination to stay. To encourage these efforts, the
central government and local municipalities need to work
with the community to renew and support this newfound
optimism.
Statistics are scarce and inaccurate in Kosovo, but data on
the Serb community are either non-existent or outdated,
which presents significant challenges to adequate policy making. In order to obtain a more accurate picture of the
situation, this paper investigates issues affecting Serb youth
in Kosovo and offers recommendations for how to increase
job opportunities.
This paper focuses on the Serb communities south of the
Ibër/Ibar River. Given certain conditions, these findings are
largely applicable to the municipalities in the north. Even
without the northern challenge, problems affecting the Serb
community are numerous. Despite the fact that there are
solutions available, the key challenge is lack of political will.
prerequisites to a free, fair and competitive election. The
issue of voters’ list inaccuracy has been a recurring one in
Kosovo, with complaints being voiced on this topic before
and after every electoral process.
This paper presents the results of a recently conducted audit
of the voters’ list of the Kaçanik municipality in order to
measure the scale of inaccuracies and irregularities and
present recommendations to address them.
The voters’ list is based on an extract of the civil registry
created and maintained by the Ministry of Internal Affairs
(MIA). The civil registry database includes all citizens who
have received their national identity cards (NIC), which are
issued at the age of 16 by the Ministry’s Department of
Public Documents (DPD).
The regular practice for each election cycle is that the MIA
provides the Central Election Commission (CEC) a recent
extract of the civil registry of all voters above age 18. This is
to suggest that the flaws with the voters’ list reflect flaws in
the civil registry, and hence that is where improvements
need to take place.
To carry out the audit, Democracy for Development (D4D)
set up a team of 17 verifiers who during May and June of
2012 went door-to-door across the Municipality of Kaçanik.
Equipped with the most recently updated voters’ list of each
polling centre, they verified whether persons found living in
each house they visited were found in the voters’ list, under
their current address.
While Kaçanik may be only one case, this paper cites the
insight it could provide for the organizing of similar audits
across Kosovo. A more accurate voters’ list throughout the
rest of Kosovo can greatly improve the voting process and
stamp out opportunities for manipulations at the ballot box.
It should be emphasized that there was anecdotal evidence
of major problems even before the audit. As a blatant
example, the late President of Kosovo and perhaps the most
recognizable public figure of the last two decades, Ibrahim
Rugova, could still be found on the voters’ list several years
after his passing. Several other reports, including one
written earlier by an author who is now with D4D, have
pointed out inaccuracies that short of reliable data were
often treated as speculation.
inflated prices of essential products in Kosovo. In addition
to explaining the underlying forces at play which lead to
higher prices, the paper intends to influence policy makers
and push them to adopt corrective actions.
Under the framework of the “Think and Link” Regional
Policy Programme, Democracy for Development Institute
conducted a study in order to identify the hidden tax and the
potential for boosting purchasing power in Kosovo. Through
an analysis of the prices of particular products in the country
and other countries in the region, this paper aimed to assess
whether there are price fixing and other shady practices in
the market.
The level of poverty in Kosovo remains high with 34.5% of
the population living in general poverty.1 Official
unemployment is reported at approximately 37%.2 Coupled
with the fact that more than 70% of imports are fast-moving
consumer goods,3 consumers in the country are forced to
pay much more than those in the region.4
The net trade balance continues to show a high deficit due to
the low level of domestic production, with Kosovo
continuing to import most of its consumer goods. As
presented in the figure below, in a one-year-period until
September 2012, the net trade deficit further increased with
total imports increasing and total exports decreasing.
The result is a consumer price index (CPI) with a steady
upward trend for over seven years. Food and non-alcoholic
beverages carry the highest weight as a share of the CPI,
followed by transport, clothing and footwear, housing,
water, electricity and other essential consumer goods
observed during the extraordinary mayoral elections in
Ferizaj and Kaçanik. The paper utilizes qualitative and
quantitative reports from observers as collected before and
during Election Day. The analysis covers all the stages of the
electoral process beginning from the observation of the
Central Election Commission in its preparations, the
campaign, Election Day and the certification of results.
As an active contributor to the election reform process,
Democracy for Development (D4D) Institute teamed up
with Initiative for Progress (INPO) to observe the election
campaign and election process in both municipalities. The
Volunteer Observation Mission (VOM) fielded the largest
and most widespread independent observation mission for
the extraordinary elections in Ferizaj and Kaçanik, with an
observer in every single polling station.
The paper comes around half a year after the elections, but
its aim was not to report on specific violations. The purpose
is to analyze the process in greater depth and draw lessons
for future elections. The paper reports on the integrity of the
process and suggests improvements that should be adopted
for implementation by the authorities and for inclusion in
the legislation under reform.
It must be noted that organizing mayoral by-elections in one
municipality at a time should not be taken as barometer of
the process and presents the best-case scenario. Compared
to full-fledged elections, mayoral elections are significantly
less challenging for the authorities to organize.
Their small scale allowed observers to scrutinize the process.
However, the presence of worrisome phenomena only
confirms the suspicion that given the current setup, Kosovowide elections would see major problems.
In addition to election observation, D4D regularly observes
the work of the Central Election Commission (CEC), and
during their functioning, it observed the work of the
Parliamentary Committee on Election Reform and the
Working Group on Election Reform. D4D also set up a civil
society Forum for Democracy that has deliberated and
reached consensus on numerous topics related to electoral
legislation.
Observation of the afore-mentioned institutions and
preparations for the two mayoral races enabled the civil
society to include two main changes to prevent fraud before
taking place. Two last-minute changes introduced under
pressure from the civil society somewhat restored credibility
in the process. The last section of this paper recommends
additional changes to the authorities
of opportunities to get ahead in society is inequitable and
whether this phenomenon has amounted to state capture.
State capture occurs when state resources and institutions
are used for private ends. Political patronage is a means to
state capture and refers to political party interference in the
allocation of public jobs and resources for political gain.
Patronage has various negative effects, mostly in reducing
the quality and impartiality of civil servants. Crucial to this
research, patronage hinders social mobility by hampering
access to public sector jobs on the basis of merit, as a means
to improve one’s socio-economic status.
Patronage is among the many challenges facing Kosovo’s
transitional democracy today. Political and personal
connections, as opposed to academic and professional
achievement, have become the primary means of getting
ahead. Patronage in Kosovo is stifling social mobility by
excluding meriting individuals from accessing public sector
jobs and by imposing a glass ceiling on career
advancements.
The aim of this study is to analyse patronage networks and
their impact on social mobility in Kosovo. To this end, we
replicated the methodology that was used in the seminal
2012 study by Kopecký, Scherlis, and Spirova on patronage
in European democracies, and applied it to the context of
Kosovo. Our research methodology consists of a survey of
experts, which we complimented with a review of academic
and policy literature and news reports. In our interviews, we
asked experts to rate the extent, both in terms of breadth
and depth, of patronage in Kosovo. We also inquired about
what its underlying motivations and modes of operation are,
as well what effects it has on social mobility in the society.
We found that patronage is pervasive in Kosovo. Experts
Patronage and its impact on Social Mobility in Kosovo almost unanimously expressed that patronage permeates all
institution and affects all levels of jobs. As such, patronage
appears to be far more pervasive in Kosovo than in any
other European country surveyed by Kopecky, Scherlis, and
Spirova (2012). Moreover, our expert interviews showed
that the motivation for patronage in Kosovo is a
combination of the desire to reward party activists and
voters, and a means to control state institutions and
resources.
Finally, we found that that patronage heavily hampers social
mobility in Kosovo. The majority of our respondents
qualified of unlikely that an individual enter the civil service
or rise through its ranks based on merit alone. Conversely,
political or personal connections are sine qua non.
Five policy recommendations are proposed to limit the
spread and influence of patronage in Kosovo. In particular,
we recommend that Kosovo: (i) continue the current
reforms and fully-implement the Civil Service Law, (ii)
generalise and standardise meritocratic entrance
examinations for all public institutions, (iii) introduce
periodic performance assessments for all civil servants and
public employees, (iv) gradually reduce the number of civil
servants and introduce a performance based salary scheme,
and finally (v) reinvigorate the Kosovo School of Public
Administration for pre and in-service training for all public
employees
on the values that stand out. We worry about the worrisome results and get little comfort from the rest of the normal results. Somehow, we seem not to care about the health of the nation at the same rate. Inspired by this comparison,
this brief policy paper outlines the most prevalent and recurring electoral manipulations in Kosovo.
Critical reports such as those that we usually publish have a major draw-back for they are seen bythe authorities as too critical and not giving due praise to positive developments. However, it is the very nature of ‘check-up’ reports to
improve public affairs by focusing on areas that need improvement most. It only intends to help the patient
improve its outlook.
This paper comes after several years of electoral work by D4D including research, observation, following of trends, or analysis of results. Numerous publications focused on the electoral system, the process, the work of the parliamentary committee on electoral reform, voter lists, and the work of the CEC.
Electoral fraud marred the 2010 elections in the country
and led to a six-month institutional deadlock, the consequences of which Kosovo still suffers. A repeat of such levels of manipulation would almost certainly incend political violence.
The political leadership has engaged in a half-hearted reform during the past year. Unfortunately, they focused only on systemic solutions which serve them to maximize political gain. In this sense, the resulting reforms were motivated by little more than political party calculations.
The 2012 EU Feasibility Study concluded that Kosovo’s elections were followed with serious deficiencies.
The international community sees the importance of fraud prevention and advises Kosovo to simplify its electoral system.
There is some improvement of electoral management in Kosovo, as noted by the progress of the mayoral by elections
in Ferizaj and Kacanik in 2012, and by a more positive trend of electoral justice.
From 2011 to 2013, policy-makers had a unique opportunity
to undertake comprehensive reforms without the distraction
of electoral populism.
During these three years, the electoral reform started and
restarted several times, each time to hit a deadlock. Each
time reform restarted, it rekindled our hopes to see it
unlock, but the reformist ambition were gradually reduced.
Media debates started to refer to the process of electoral
‘deform’.
The last time we expected some modest reform was the
Spring of 2013 when two documents were published. A twopage
document reflects a list of principles drafted by the
member states of the European Union which now awaits an
answer by the Kosovar leadership.
The other document reflected the opinion of the party
leaders who had begun to harmonise their positions. This
document was made public by AKR, the party which hosted
the last meeting of the leaders’ forum. Both documents are
indicators of the direction that reform can take after the
municipal elections when discussion is expected to resume.
northern Kosovo (as differently as this outcome may be assessed by each of them), but also to prepare for contingencies.
The voter turnout in the four Serb majority northern municipalities is as important as their relations with Prishtina afterwards. While the northern politicians have embraced a passive boycott, several violent incidents herald a climate of
active intimidation that could seriously reduce turnout or potentially halt the electoral process altogether. The EU seems willing to accept a fairly low turnout as a sufficient legal basis for the new municipal institutions. However, it is hard to see any serious contingency preparations – a Plan B – to put things
back on track in case of derailment.
The paper looks at the challenges ahead and analyses the latest
developments among the north Kosovo Serb political elite and the roles played by Belgrade and Prishtina. It ends with a consideration of four scenarios for the elections and their
aftermath (summarised on the next page).