What Kosovo has that Britain doesn’t

From my home in southern Italy it’s just 300 miles due east to Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. If I had a private jet or a helicopter, it would be a very short journey. However, with the Adriatic sea between us, getting from one to the other needs a car journey, train, bus, flight, bus and then a taxi from Pristina’s main bus station to a bar for a well deserved drink after, all told, a twelve hour journey.

The bar, Tillt Radio Bar, is a kind of hipster, vinyl record shop which opens for drinks in the evenings, and often late into the night, with resident and guest DJs. It’s in the Dragodan area of the capital, a relatively well off, middle class and achingly trendy suburb which contains Toni Bler street.

I am reliably informed that, under normal circumstances, the bar is frequented by many of the politicos of Pristina, MPs, government and party staff, political journalists and other movers and shakers in Kosovan civil society. Tonight might be different. There are two days of campaigning left before the general election. The politicians and party people might be busy, tired, or avoiding each other. General election campaigns here can get rancorous and the last thing anyone wants is for a physical, rather than a political fight to break out.

I meet up with my hosts Dom and Myrvete, a British/Kosovan couple who live nearby. Myrvete will use her vote, but won’t tell me how. The rest of the customers in the bar sum up why Lëvizja Vetëvendosje (LVV) the current majority ruling party, will again be the largest party in Parliament after the election and, if the latest polls are to be believed, will gain more than half of the votes. With Kosovo’s proportional system, that will mean they can govern alone, without the need for a coalition partner.

LVV’s electoral coalition is wide and deep, and is represented clearly among the customers of the Tillt Bar. Women overwhelmingly vote LVV, as do young people, and the diaspora. Kosovan citizens living across the world, including thirty thousand in the UK, have a vote, by post, or at the Kosovan embassy in their home country, and also overwhelmingly vote LVV.

Among the young, English speaking, educated and hip customers, I struggled to find anyone who was not planning to vote for the current governing party.

Amy, a 19 year old student at the university of Pristina, replied with a little incredulity at the notion that she would vote for anyone else. I might as well have asked if the sky is blue. Of course it is. The question hardly needs to be asked.

I got chatting to a group of three young men who work in IT, yet more representatives of LVV’s core demographic. One, a little shamefacedly admitted that he would be voting LDK (The Democratic League of Kosovo). He clearly has his reasons, but was reticent about explaining exactly why. It felt a little like I was being intrusive, bringing the conversation round to politics. This group were all decided and set in how they would vote, and now they wanted to talk about music, and work and the other interesting topics of conversation to be had.

My main feeling was that, however individuals might vote, the settled and accepted wisdom is that LVV will be the largest party, probably continuing to govern alone, and people are fine with that. Either enthusiastically supportive, or simply resigned to that political fact. The election is a thing that will happen on Sunday, the results will come in, and then everyone will get on with their lives and nothing much will change. That degree of political stability is remarkable, especially here. It represents the kind of political consensus that has been missing in the UK for decades.