KOSOVO'S DIVIDED OPPOSITION

C O N F I D E N T I A L PRISTINA 000257 SIPDIS PASS TO EUR/SCE NSC FOR HELGERSON E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/29/2019 TAGS: PGOV PREL KV SUBJECT: KOSOVO'S DIVIDED OPPOSITION Classified By: Ambassador Tina S. Kaidanow for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (SBU) Summary: Kosovo's three opposition parties lack the unity and parliamentary strength to challenge the PDK-led coalition. Ramush Haradinaj has failed to unify the opposition behind him and the remaining opposition parties do not embrace his party's leadership against the government. Their fractious, ineffective opposition allows Prime Minister Thaci considerable room to govern with few parliamentary checks on his power, though the AAK will make a concerted effort in November's municipal elections to demonstrate greater electoral strength and thereby challenge the government to call national elections in 2010. End Summary. ¶2. (SBU) Divided leadership and conflicting agendas mark the relations between the opposition parties. AAK's parliamentary presence is too small to fuel its ambitions to rally the opposition behind it and its rogue past deters formal collaboration by opposition parties AKR and LDD. AKR, the pet project of wealthy businessman Bexhet Pacolli, has never committed itself to sustained opposition to the government and is just as likely to support coalition legislative goals as to oppose them. Nexhat Daci's LDD lacks political seriousness and although it often votes with AAK in the Kosovo Assembly, it is ignored by Haradinaj, who prefers to court potential renegade LDK MPs. -------------- AAK: The Contender -------------- ¶3. (SBU) The Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) is Kosovo's leading opposition party. Although its thirteen MPs are a small presence in the 120-member Assembly, AAK is the best organized and most determined in its opposition to the coalition. Kosovo politics are personality driven, and its political parties are top-down organizations. AAK is no exception, with party leader Ramush Haradinaj wielding near total control over daily activities. Haradinaj, however, has been more effective than his counterparts in creating a party that resonates as more than just a vanity project. Active in all policy discussions and more vocal in its criticism of PDK than other opposition parties, AAK is a relevant political presence with a strong base of support in the country's western Dukagini region, and it is intent on strengthening its position nationally. ¶4. (SBU) Since Haradinaj's acquittal on war crimes charges at the Hague in 2008, AAK has been single-minded in its determination to get back into power after its 2007 loss to PDK. Last year the party maneuvered in vain using parliamentary diatribes, an intensive media campaign and threats of litigation to force the government to call early national elections before its mandate ends in 2011. With municipal elections looming on November 15, AAK sees an opportunity to test its electoral strength. ¶5. (SBU) This spring AAK held a series of public roundtables to trumpet public policy proposals designed to sell the party as a serious contender to lead the next government. As part of its strategy, AAK is attracting - and sometimes poaching from the competition - prominent figures that ensure ongoing media attention. In December 2008, Blerim Shala, one of Kosovo's most influential public intellectuals and the former editor of the large-distribution Zeri newspaper, joined AAK in a senior party leadership position, bringing with him media savvy and insuring a loyal tabloid that daily extols AAK and criticizes the government. Within the Assembly, AAK has grown from ten MPs to thirteen in recent months due to defections from other parties, and it is now the single largest opposition party in the Assembly. Principal among these parliamentary moves was former LDK Finance Minister Haki Shatri's decision to defect to AAK in the spring. Shatri is now positioned to head the new Assembly Public Accounts Committee where he will lead the committee's oversight authority of government spending and give AAK a prominent platform to criticize the government. AAK is also openly wooing other LDK MPs, most conspicuously its ambitious caucus leader Lutfi Haziri, to jump ship. ¶6. (SBU) Despite its tactical resourcefulness, AAK and the rest of the opposition usually lack the votes in the Assembly to challenge the coalition. Thus frustrated in its political ambitions in the Assembly, AAK attacks the PDK-led coalition through a barrage of press releases alleging official corruption, orchestrated media coverage from the party friendly Zeri newspaper, and filing periodic judicial challenges to government decisions. The AAK's propensity to advance its fortunes through veiled appeals to ethnic Albanian nationalism and an uncompromising, provocative stance towards sovereignty and security issues, especially regarding the tinderbox north, injects a troubling tone of jingoism into political discussion amid efforts to expand Kosovo's multi-ethnic institutions. ¶7. (SBU) Despite its drive and organizational skills, AAK is hampered by a legacy of corruption and a paltry record of accomplishments from its tenure leading the government from 2004 to 2007. AAK remains a pariah to many Kosovo voters and will have its work cut out in future national elections to improve on its fifth-place showing and nine percent electoral tally in 2007. -------------- AKR: The Conflicted Collaborator -------------- ¶8. (SBU) The New Kosovo Alliance (AKR) is arguably a rich man's hobby masquerading as a political party. AKR was founded in 2006 by Kosovo's richest businessman, Bexhet Pacolli. Pacolli, a wily tycoon who owns a Swiss-based construction and engineering consortium, was initially dismissed as a dilettante, and AKR was given slim chances of surpassing the five percent electoral threshold in 2007 to claim any Assembly seats. However, AKR introduced itself to voters with a strong, business-friendly message that resonated among the emerging entrepreneurial class of small business owners. In the closing weeks of the electoral campaign Pacolli reportedly poured more money into political advertising for AKR than all other parties combined. The party emerged with the third highest vote tally at 13 percent and gained 13 (now reduced by defections to ten) parliamentary seats. ¶9. (C) Pacolli is an absent party leader, spending at least as much time out of Kosovo as inside. In his absence, AKR is run by its two parliamentary leaders: Ibrahim Makolli, a former human rights activist; and Ibrahim Gashi, a law professor with no prior political experience until joining AKR. Both have little in common with Pacolli or each other. Pacolli, who regularly trots the globe to lobby foreign governments to recognize Kosovo, fancies himself a statesman, not a retail politician. Despite a solid record of speaking out on rule-of-law issues and sponsoring policy roundtables - including an April conference in Washington that discussed regional development and security challenges - AKR lacks a clear focus politically and oscillates between criticizing the coalition and cooperating with it. This past spring it launched what Makolli described as a non-partisan campaign to rally the opposition and civil society around an AKR-led reform agenda. The effort was a publicity stunt for which AKR lacked the savvy and organizational heft to turn into the credible political movement it had envisioned. A common refrain in Pristina is that AKR's criticism of the government increases in direct proportion to how far Pacolli is away from Kosovo. The other opposition parties dismiss AKR as a silent partner to PDK. -------------- LDD: The Grudge -------------- ¶10. (C) The Democratic League of Dardania (LDD) formed in the wake of LDK's disastrous party convention in 2006 when former Assembly Speaker and LDK heavyweight Nexhat Daci lost the party leadership battle to Fatmir Sejdiu. Daci, who earned a reputation as a difficult and authoritarian Speaker, founded LDD in 2007 with a core group of loyal supporters. Appealing to traditional LDK voters who were disenchanted with the party's coalition with AAK, he led LDD to a fourth place electoral showing in 2007. The party, founded more on spite than any discernible political principle, appears to exist for no other reason than to obstruct the rest of Pristina's political establishment. Its ten MPs, a police line-up of untalented LDK leftovers, are usually reliable, if flaky, supporters for AAK's parliamentary machinations of the day. ¶11. (C) A current example of LDD's shallow talent pool is found in the brouhaha over which party will chair the new Intelligence Committee. The committee must be chaired by the opposition and LDD is in line for it. However, the "best" candidate LDD could put forward is a thuggish MP, Gani Geci, infamous for throwing chairs at the 2006 LDK convention and beating up the current Budget Chairman in a brawl in the Assembly building. Prospective members of the new committee from all parties refuse to countenance this man as chairman and have held up establishing the committee. LDD's caucus leader last week appealed to poloff to help end the impasse and it was clear he was physically afraid to confront his fellow MP. ¶12. (C) Comment: The three opposition parties resemble the personalities of their leaders. AAK is calculating, organized and reckless in its ambitions to return to power. AKR, the part-time pursuit of a rich and distracted businessman, resembles a NGO or a consulting group more than a political party. LDD is the bitter, grudge-bearing ex-spouse of a broken LDK marriage and lacks the political vision or maturity to rally anyone behind it. Disparate in their goals and collectively too few in number to challenge the coalition, the opposition is unable to provide an effective check to PDK's control of the government. The concentration of power and economic opportunity within a tight circle around Prime Minister Thaci have led to growing cries within the Assembly - including by senior PDK MPs - that the government is corrupt and undemocratic. But the Prime Minister runs PDK with a strong, confident hand and appears unconcerned about grumbling within his own ranks. With enemies like AAK, AKR and LDD - who needs friends? KAIDANOW