Category: News and Events

To discus about this issue ‘Life in Kosovo’ had invited Valdete Daka, head of Central Election Commission, and Baki Kelani, Kosovo Police spokesperson.

The head of Central Elections Commission, Valdete Daka, told that Thursday evening the results for four North Kosovo municipalities will be ready; whereas, Baki Kelani, talked about the operation plan of Kosovo Police in the north.

Valdete Daka promised that they will publish the results on Friday (the debate was held on Thursday). She said that the voting sheets for the north Kosovo municipalities were being counted in the CEC offices because of the security reasons. “The commissioners and the observers were present in the counting process”, said Daka.

Daka also mentioned the incidents and security level in North Kosovo. “Considering the situation in North Kosovo the security level should have been higher and more organized having in mind that there were many threats done toward the citizens of that part of Kosovo”, added Daka. Despite the incidents, Daka classified the process as successful.

During the Elections day a group of masked people entered in three polling centers: Sveti Sava School, Technical High School, and the Medical High School. As a result of this problem these three polling centers were declared invalid.

The spokesperson of Kosovo Police, Baki Kelani, said that the operation plan of Kosovo Police for the local level and was sent to the all regional departments including the regional department of the municipality of North Mitrovica.

Kelani claimed that besides Kosovo Police responsible were also the international institutions such as EULEX and KFOR. Kelani talked mainly about the attack in the school Sveti Sava.

“A group of approximately 30 people entered in the polling center Sveti Sava and they attacked the commissioners and destroyed the election material”, said Kelani.

The reaction of the Kosovo Police officials was adequate. Kosovo Police managed to save the lives of people who were inside the polling center. According to Kelani, Kosovo Police opened eight files and arrested 3 persons in the north part of Mitrovica.

 

To discuss this topic Life in Kosovo invited: Betim Gjoshi, representative of PDK in Central Election Commission; Florian Dushi, representative of LDK in CEC; Binak Vishaj, representative of AAK in CEC; Adnan Rrustemi, representative of Vetëvendosje in CEC; and Valmir Ismaili, Democracy in Action.

Valmir Ismaili, of Democracy in Action, during the debate said that it is important that the results of the elections of November 3rd to reflect the citizens will. Betim Gjoshi said that the elections day should be a day to celebrate, whereas Florian Dushi asked to not repeat the election abuse that happened in 2010, where the national elections were considered to have warped citizens will.

The Vetëvendosje representative, Adnan Rrustemi, said that many Serbian citizens have applied to participate in the elections of November 3rd and the only document that they posses is a refugee card.

According to Rrustemi, when applying to vote in Kosovo, they should posses a document such as ID card, driving license, health card, or electricity bills to make sure that they lived in Kosovo before 1998. The ones that want to vote with the refugee card may not be from Kosovo; they might be from Bosnia and Croatia and we wouldn’t know.

Around 40 thousand applications coming from Serbia were received by CEC through OSCE. Over 6000 applications were approved and the others were refused.

Moreover, during the debate it was also said that even though the election campaign has started, the CEC still has not finished organization of elections. According to the operational plan of CEC the polling station should have been formed by now, but they are not formed yet.

Another problem that CEC is facing is the electoral list. 20 thousand dead persons and 11 thousand who resigned the Kosovo citizenship were removed from the list, but there are still many more that can be found in the election registers. Betim Gjoshi blames the citizens for not informing the municipality about the death of their family members.

Binak Vishaj said that in the near future CEC will remove 1000 other persons that resigned the Kosovo citizenship.

Furthermore, only 2100 persons have applied from Diaspora to participate in the local election of November 3rd and 1700 applications were approved. In the electoral list are put all the persons that posses Kosovo documents, no matter where they live.

The elections of November 3rd will be observed by many domestic and international organizations. Democracy in Action will have 1600 observers around Kosovo, whereas EU will have 100 observers.

Leon Malazogu, executive director of D4D Institution said that the visits and the messages of Serbian officials are totally against the containing of the agreement. Also, the analyst Besa Shahini from the European Initiative for Stability agreed with Leon Malazogu’ statement.

“It the Prime Minister of Serbia comes and says that the Serbians of Kosovo should vote a particular list then he is breaching the Brussels’ agreement”, said Shahini.

The analyst Dugagjin Gorani said that the uncoordinated declarations were a mismanagement of the situation; however, these declarations are not important and do not impact the process.

Moreover, Branislav Krstiq, analyst and journalist form North Mitrovica, said that the purpose of this visits is for citizens to vote based on their directives. They want to lower the risk of Albanians winning in the Serbian municipalities.

Ten days before the end of pre-elections campaign the elections turnout of Serbians of Kosovo was classified as unpredictable by the panelists of Life in Kosovo despite the published polls.

A report published United Nations Development Program (UNDP) showed Quick Facts for the North Municipalities in Relation to Local Elections.
According to the report, 16 percent Serbians living in North Kosovo declared that they will vote; 17 percent said maybe; whereas, 23 percent said that they haven’t decided yet.

Besa Shahini said that the official’s visits do not raise the number of Serbian participants in the Local Elections of 2013. Whereas, Leon Malazogu said that Serbian officials are not encourage Serbians of Kosovo to cooperate with Prishtina.

Branislav Krstiq also stated that the Serbian Province in Kosovo is only a dream of the radical Serbians and it is a misunderstanding for the majority of Albanians.

Despite the inability to predate the participation of Serbians in the election, Gorani said that the participation in these elections is very important.

The Minister, Vlora Çitaku, also discussed the Progress Report for Kosovo for the year 2013. 

“If we fail this test, the European future of Kosovo will be hit in the worst way possible”, said the Minister of European Integration, Vlora Çitaku, in the interview given for Life in Kosovo, where she also discussed the local election that will be held on November 3, 2013. She qualifies these elections as very important for Kosovo and its European future. 

“The elections of November 3 are not a written condition for the Stabilization-Association Agreement, but it is classified as the main condition of this agreement. It is the basic criterion that we should fulfill if we want to move forward whether with the Stabilization-Association Agreement, the Visa liberalization process, or any other process that is connected to the integration of Kosovo in international mechanisms”, said the minister Çitaku. 

According to Çitaku, these elections should be flawless. During the interview Mrs. Çitaku also declared that the Progress Report for Kosovo is the exact scan of the overall current state of the country. 

“This report is the diagnostics of the real state of the country in all the institutions. In this progress is not only measured the government performance, but also measures the performance of other institutions”, said Mrs. Citaku. 
The report was received by the Kosovo institution two days ago and it clearly states all the challenges faced and the progress achieved by Kosovo. “The fulfillment of the short term criteria for the initiation of negotiations for the Stabilization-Association Agreement is one of the progresses of Kosovo mentioned in this report, whereas the most challenging part is the rule of law in Kosovo”, said Mrs. Çitaku. 

The minister Citaku also complained about the ministers who do not attend the parliament sessions and the meetings of the parliamentary commissions in order to answer the questions of members of the parliament. She also mentioned that the criticisms for the election reforms are a big challenge. 

The minister Çitaku also talked about the fight against corruption, organized crimes, public administration reforms and their impacts in the judiciary.

Çitaku is the head of the Negotiation Team in the Stabilization-Association Agreement; the team which has had two meeting until now.

To discuss about this issue Life in Kosovo has invited: Leonora Kryeziu, executive director of Pristina Institute for Political Studies; Agron Demi, executive director of GAP institute; Hajrullah Çeku, executive director of the nongovernmental organization “Ec Ma Ndryshe”; and Arbana Xharra, editor-in-chief of the daily “Zëri”.

Agron Demi mentioned that there are many mayors that govern a municipality but they do not actually live in that municipality. Therefore, they (the candidates) cannot see all the problems that occur in their municipality. Many of the candidates that are running for mayor do not know the problems that they will have to face. When you ask the candidates for the problems of the municipality they usually deal with the basic one such as roads and sewages. There is no plan on how to improve the governance.

In addition, Leonora Kryeziu said that a specific issue that we dealt with in the institution is the energy management, more specifically energy efficiency. Every candidate that is running for mayor should have as one of the priorities the energy efficiency.
In addition, Arbana Xharra added that a critical thing is that a few candidates have legal problems and yet they run for mayor. People that are involved in scandals, corruption and crimes run for mayor in some municipalities. The awareness among voters should be raised and they should not vote a candidate just because they promised to hire one of the family members or that his/her business will benefit during this candidate’s mandate.

Moreover, Hajrullah Ceku’s organization has drafted a guide for citizens on how a candidate that is running for Prizren should be. Hajrullah Ceku said that none of the candidates that run for Prizren fulfils all the criteria in this guide. One of the problems is that the mayors do not differ from each other; they all use the same platform. If the mayor does not state in the beginning for which town h/she is running for mayor, the citizen cannot tell which town it is because they all have the same platform.

It was also mentioned that in 2010 GAP institute evaluated if the promises that were done during the election campaign were being kept. Mr. Demi pointed out that many of the promises were not kept and they even seemed ridiculous.

Finally, some of the ideas that were given to the candidates were: to lower the number of administrative staff. There are many people that work in administrative issues but they are not qualified to work there; the parties to be more prepared for the elections. In the last minutes the parties changed the names of the candidates; to deal with the water supply; new job creations; to create a new environment for small and medium enterprises.

The first issue discussed was the case of Egypt and the recognition of Kosovo by Egypt. Since Egypt is in a sort of crisis because the president Morsi was overthrown, the new leading party could bring problems to the recognition of Kosovo. However, minister assures that there are no such implications since he has visited Egypt after the conflict and the situation towards Kosovo is stable.

According to Enver Hoxhaj, the agreement between Prishtina and Beograd is beneficial and it is a step forwards the improvement of mutual relationships. Regarding the case of the ex-ambassador Lulzim Peci, the ministry of foreign affairs has a sensitive approach by saying that his decision to claim his resignation in the media was unprofessional. Moreover, Hoxhaj adds that the ex-ambassador had attended meetings that were not arranged by the ministry of foreign affairs.

Kosovo is now a part of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development which is a very important organization. Members of this organization that voted for the acceptance of the Republic of Kosovo were even the member countries that did not recognize the independence of Kosovo. In this organization Kosovo is registered strictly as the Republic of Kosovo without the footnote.

Minister Hoxhaj has been lobbying in different countries, not only for the recognition of Kosovo, but also for further investments. However, the issue of privatizing big companies of Kosovo has not brought the recognition of some countries; i.e. Greece. In reply to this, Hoxhaj adds: “I can assure that in a near future Greece, Rumania, and Slovakia will move towards the decision of recognizing the Republic of Kosovo.”

Part of this interview was reportage done by one of BIRN journalist regarding the deviations in the road of Kijeve.

To discuss about this issue Life in Kosovo invited some domestic and international anthropologists such as Karolin Llojtllof and Robert Pihler, anthropologist from Austria; Nebi Bardoshi, anthropologist from Albania; Eli Krasniqi and Tahir Latifi, anthropologists from Kosovo; and Ariana Qosaj- Mustafa, lawyer from Kosovo.

Berit Beker and Xhenet Rajnek were the two anthropologists that came to Kosovo, during ‘80ties to write books on how big Albanian families in Kosovo function. They learned Albanian and lived with the big Albanian families in Opoja and Isniq.

After 30 years, two anthropologists are following their steps of these researchers. Eli Krasiqi and Tahir Latifi have decided to live in Opoja and Isniq in order to find out if the life of big Albanian families in Kosovo has changed. This project’s purpose is to analyze the changes that happened in these families after 30 years.

Both anthropologists said that the families are much smaller nowadays, but there are not many changes. Even though in other European countries members of the families no longer live all together, in Kosovo there are still villages and regions such as Opoja and Isniq where members of the families live all together.

Kosovo still remains a patriarchal country where the man of the house still has the last word in decision making. Women, in many parts of Kosovo, are economically dependent on their husbands; therefore, these women think that they do not have the right to make decisions. Ariana Qosaj- Mustafa thinks that as soon as women in Kosovo start to work and they are no longer economically dependent on their husbands, they will be able to take decision for themselves and their families.

Moreover, Caroline Lojtllof said that in the pas a lot of Kosovo citizens migrated and left their wives and children in Kosovo for years. Nowadays men do not leave their wives and children at home because of the different circumstances. If they want to migrate and work somewhere else, they take their wife and their children and go together.

In June 25, 2013, Vetevendosje boycotted and disrupted a regular Assembly session about the ratification of Prishtina-Belgrade agreement. To show discontent about this agreement, Vetevendosje activists organized a protest in front of the assembly. Some activists threw rocks at the police cars after the police intervened to end the protests.

When asked about the protests Kurti added: “First, Vetevendosje is highly against ratifying the agreement and just knowing that there are deputies that will vote in favor of it was the peek for us as activists. Second, we were attacked violently by the police during the protest so we just had to throw rocks, even though this act is not appreciated by any of the activists.”

Agron Bajrami, Editor-in-Chief of Koha Ditore, added that even though Vetevendosje is against the ratification it is highly responsible for the activists’ actions: “Vetevendosje has the aim of refusing the parliament’s decision, but those kinds of acts that were ignited mostly because of a small number of protesters are not acceptable,” he added.

Mufail Limani, Director of Radio Television of Kosovo (RTK), also participating in the debate. According to Limani, Vetevendosje does not know what it wants from Kosovo, and what they are asking for does not follow the democratic ideologies of the country. He also emphasized that the movement was too inappropriate in its early stages to be turned into a political party. Kurti replied that Vetevendosje is not a political party, but a political movement.

Vetevendosje has a reputation of refusing to better relations with Serbs, while Kurti adds that this is not the case – and Vetevendosje is only asking for Serbia to apologize to Kosovo.

Edona Lluka, President of APJK, gave her analysis on the current situation between Vetevendosje and citizens, saying that Vetevendosje had much more supporters when they were not involved in politics, and were just considered an activist group. Lluka asked Kurti how Vetevendosje is planning to convince citizens that they should democratically rule a country when they use violent measures to achieve their aims and do not have good relations with the other political parties.

Kurti replied that they are not asking for voters, and only want to protect Kosovo from the ratification because it will be a disastrous act: “Even though we do not have good relations with the other parties, time is proving that there are no real political parties in Kosovo,” added Kurti.

Kurti and five other members of Vetevendosje were in Washington DC and met six congressmen and a senator to talk about this issue. They took their stand on the ratification agreement and also on the American ambassador, Tracey Ann Jacobson, who refuses to meet them. Kurti said that they have sent a letters asking the ambassador to join them in Washington to discuss this issue but never received an answer.

On November 3 will be the date of the elections. Kurti said that they are preparing for the local elections and they aim to win the election in most of the municipalities. “The most important part of the local elections are the candidates and we will choose the best alternatives during the summer,” said Kurti.

10 600 children were born in the year 2012 in Prishtina and one of the main issues of the parents is the registration of their children in the kindergartens. The monthly price for a public kindergarten is 50 Euros, while in the private kindergartens it differs from 80 to150 euros per month. There is a tremendous competition for these places which are extremely disproportionatein their number of children.

A parent interviewed by “Life in Kosovo” said that he had a lot of troubles finding a place for his child since there were cases were 30 places were free and in which 300 thousand children were applying. One of the ways to get accepted is by having relatives in the kindergartens.  However, the heads of the kindergartens are categorical regarding the assumption that children are accepted in the kindergartens because they know someone working in the building. They say that there is no truth to that, but interventions from parents are present.

HalimHalili, director of the Municipal Directorate of Education of Pristina; says that the problem relies on the fact that half of the population is not registered – there are only 200 thousand registered, but in fact the numbers are approximately 400 thousand. The problems addressed were about children waiting too long to get accepted, the unavailability of free places and the higher prices in the private kindergartens. Halili in response to this, said: “we do know what people of Pristina undergo but the problem is that there is not enough budget to build new kindergartens. However, we have already worked on two kindergartens “Ajvalia” and “Mat” but because of the limited budget it is impossible to pay the staff, therefore we cannot put them in function.”

MeritaShala, a babyhoodexpert, added: “this is not only the issue of the Ministry of Education. It is a part of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Work and Social Welfare. There should be cooperations between all these departments so that this problem could be solved.” Moreover, she added that the private kindergartens that have not license should be closed immediately because they do not have the appropriate conditions of a kindergarten, i.e. enough garden space.

Defrim Gashi, director of Education Inspection MEST, regarding the licenses said that “the time it takes for a kindergarten to get a license is not that long;it will take them at least one year to get analyzed because there are several standards that kindergartens should accomplish.”

Jehona Xhaferi, kindergarten trainer of teachers, confessed that she has sent her child to a private kindergarten. “I have applied in a public kindergarten, but I was not sure whether my child would be accepted. I was lucky because I knew the head of one private kindergarten and I was aware of the conditions there. My daughter immediately adapted to this new place, so I knew that was the right one.” She also adds that the problem is not only with the free spaces but with the standards of these kindergartens, and she insiststhat the standards must be accomplished so that children would grow properly.

Merita Shala explained a study in babyhood done in Kosovo by Yale University which showed that the number of accepted children is really low, and the prices are one of the highest in the region; while the standard of living in Kosovo is lower in comparison to the other regions.

In conclusion, the number of kindergartens in Prishtina is really low compared to the number of children. The chances of getting accepted are much higher if you know someone in one kindergarten. There is a problem with the standards and the license of some private kindergartens. In order for these problems to be solved there should be more collaboration between all the departments.