KOSOVO: AAK'S ELECTORAL AMBITIONS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PRISTINA 000057 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR DRL, INL, EUR/SCE, NSC FOR HELGERSON E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/05/2019 TAGS: PREL PGOV PINR KV SUBJECT: KOSOVO: AAK'S ELECTORAL AMBITIONS Classified By: Ambassador Tina S. Kaidanow for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY. The Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK),Kosovo's leading opposition party, is restructuring itself in a bid to return to power in future elections. Founded by former Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, AAK is attempting to expand from its core base of support in western Kosovo. AAK recently named Blerim Shala, former editor of the influential daily newspaper Zeri and a prominent public intellectual, to a senior leadership position in an effort to increase the party's appeal. However, AAK is still haunted by public antipathy stemming from widespread corruption allegations and a reputation for ineffectiveness when it was in power from 2004 to 2007. President Sejdiu's recent decision that national elections will be held in 2011 has frustrated AAK electoral aspirations. Despite Haradinaj's continued efforts to destabilize Prime Minister Thaci's government, AAK faces a long, hard road to overcome its legacy of corruption and incompetence to reposition itself for electoral success. End Summary. Life of the Party: The More, the Merrier -------------- ¶2. (SBU) On November 30, AAK held its fourth party convention. The party created a new working group to formulate public policy proposals and also established a consultative body to advise the party leadership. AAK's Steering Council (policy-making body) increased in size by half to 74 members and the party's highest decision-making body, the Presidency, expanded from 20 to 37 members, including five vice presidents. Poloff attended AAK's party convention and witnessed a well-organized, enthusiastic rally that attracted hundreds of supporters in addition to representatives from across the political spectrum of Pristina's establishment. Election totals for candidates to the Steering Committee demonstrated Haradinaj's continued strength in the party he founded in 2000; his strongest supporters (including his brother Daut who received the highest number of votes) polled at the top of the list of successful Steering Committee candidates while former Prime Minister and Haradinaj dissident Bajram Kosumi and his supporters trailed the rest of the pack. (Comment: Despite the impressive vote tallies of his allies, Haradinaj has been unable to rid AAK of opposing viewpoints. Instead, he has packed the party's highest bodies with supporters, ensuring their support but compromising effectiveness due to their unwieldy size. End Comment.) AAK Expansion Plans: This Time We Really Mean It -------------- --- ¶3. (C) Ardian Gjini is AAK's parliamentary caucus leader and one of two new party leaders elevated to party vice president status. Gjini is a strong Haradinaj supporter, as are all of the party vice presidents except Kosumi. (Note: A discussion between Poloff and Kosumi quickly degenerated into a self-pitying tirade about the lack of democracy inside AAK with no other insights into AAK despite his party leadership position. End Note.) Gjini recently discussed party-building initiatives with poloff and said that AAK, having finished a three-year long internal debate over the party's political orientation to become a center-right party, is now working on policy proposals that will focus on economic development, job creation, and HEALTH care. Gjini, a former minister in the prior AAK-led government, acknowledged AAK's corruption "perception problem" and public frustration over its allegedly feeble record of accomplishments while in power. He said the party would respond by championing rule of law issues and accountability in the municipal governments it controls. (Comment: Gjini is a gifted politician who can frankly discuss the party's faults and daunting legacy of corruption while guilelessly air-brushing his own participation in the same. End Comment.) ¶4. (C) AAK's voter base is in western Kosovo, principally the towns of Gjakove/Djakovica, Peja/Pec and Decan. In four national elections since 2000 the party has consistently PRISTINA 00000057 002 OF 003 averaged eight percent of the popular vote, polling at fifth place in national elections in 2007. Gjini acknowledged AAK's poor electoral record. He said the party was renewing its efforts to expand nationwide and planned party-building efforts in Gjilane, Prizren and Mitrovica, among other towns. (Note: In the give-and-take of local politics played out at the municipal level AAK has exhibited growing, if uneven, strength through defections of local politicians from other parties. However, AAK has made prior, failed attempts since 2000 to expand from its base in western Kosovo. End Note.) Gjini said the expansion of the Steering Committee and Presidency was done to accommodate a greater geographical balance in the AAK's leadership. He also said the party had adopted a 30 percent quota for participation by women in party bodies in an effort to expand support among women voters and, according to Gjini, break up AAK's patriarchal power structure, which is typical of the Kosovo political establishment. (Note: A discussion with Gjylnaze Syle, an outspoken AAK MP, former caucus leader and ONE of the party's few influential female members, revealed that Gjini was ONE of the principal opponents of the gender measure. End Note.) ¶5. (C) Ahmet Isufi is also a member of the AAK Presidency and a former government minister. In a conversation about the AAK's future, Isufi echoed to poloff Gjini's observations regarding AAK's party development plans and added that the party had replaced the local leadership in several branches that performed poorly in the 2007 national election. He also said AAK, in addition to focusing primarily on economic issues of increasing investment and jobs, will work to improve the responsiveness of municipal governments it controlled to woo voters. Isufi was aggressive in his criticism of the Thaci government, specifically its handling of the security situation in the North. Both he and Gjini said AAK would continue to push for early national elections in 2009 despite President Sejdiu's January decision to the contrary. However, both AAK leaders acknowledged this would be an uphill task and that the party could profitably use the upcoming year to prepare itself for the fall's municipal elections. Shala: Public Intellectual to Party Man -------------- ¶6. (C) Blerim Shala, who recently resigned as the editor of Zeri when he joined AAK, is ONE of Kosovo's most prominent intellectuals with a history of social activism. (Note: Shala continues to exert strong influence on Zeri operations. End Note) Although he has a long informal association with Haradinaj and AAK (Zeri is a reliable media supporter for AAK),Shala previously eschewed an active role in Kosovo politics. As such, his abrupt elevation to the top ranks of the party's leadership caught much of Pristina by surprise. Shala came in a strong second in vote totals for the Steering Committee and was subsequently named First Vice President, the only presidency member so named. In a recent meeting he explained his decision to formalize his role with AAK as the culmination of a long, close relationship with the party and Haradinaj. Shala exhibited a keen grasp of a wide range of political and policy issues, and he was unsparing in his criticism of the Thaci government, especially in what he described as the mishandling of sovereignty and security issues in the North. (Note: Other senior AAK leaders are circumspect in their comments about Shala, who lacks relevant party organizational skills, and no AAK leaders have expressed any enthusiasm over Shala's sudden elevation from outside supporter to senior party leader. It is also unclear what new strengths Shala brings to AAK from within the party that his outside cheerleading did not already provide. End Note.) AAK on security -------------- ¶7. (C) Naim Maloku is a long-serving AAK party leader, ONE of its vice presidents and the party's representative in the Assembly Presidency. Maloku informed Poloff that AAK is drafting a plan that will detail the party's proposals in the PRISTINA 00000057 003 OF 003 security sector. He said the Thaci government had failed to deal with growing criminality emanating from the North (especially petrol smuggling) or the challenge posed by Serb parallel structures. Unique among senior AAK leaders, Maloku will sometimes praise the government as he did recently when he commended the GOK for its initial steps to enforce law and order in the North in cooperation with EULEX. Maloku said the security plan, which will be publicly released on June 30, is comprehensive in scope and details proposed coordination between EULEX, NATO, KSF and the Kosovo police as well as other state security institutions (the national security council and intelligence service) that are still being stood up. Following a news conference in January where the party unveiled its HEALTH sector proposals, Maloku said that on February 20 AAK will release an interim security report that will critique the GOK's performance in this sector. ¶8. (SBU) COMMENT: As a party AAK exhibits many of the traits of its founder: energetic, organized, determined, cunning and reckless. Although AAK is dominated by Haradinaj, it is more than a one-man political vanity project as demonstrated by a creative, active, and sometimes contentious party organization. Like Haradinaj, the party is single-minded in its determination to claw its way back to power. The decision that national elections will not be held until 2011, while dealing a blow to AAK's immediate electoral ambitions, may benefit it in the long run. AAK has just begun a long party development process designed to turn it from a regional party with a modest parliamentary presence (11 MPs) into a national party that can credibly challenge the current PDK-led government. There is little evidence that national elections this year would push AAK beyond its usual 8 percent voter threshold despite party dreams of achieving 20 percent or more. AAK will have an opportunity to prove its presumed electoral strength in municipal elections expected to be held this November. Delaying parliamentary elections for another two years may also help the electorate forget AAK's past shortcomings. However, patience is not a virtue either Haradinaj or AAK possesses. An upcoming AAK-driven parliamentary debate is the party's latest protest measure over President Sejdiu's election decision and is indicative of AAK's determination to force early elections, ONE way or another. Pristina has been rife with rumors for months of various AAK schemes to undermine an already shaky LDK coalition partner, thereby depriving the PDK-led coalition of its parliamentary majority. More dangerous are signs that AAK may use the emotional debate over the North -- with its overlapping and vexing security, legal and sovereignty issues -- to destabilize the Thaci government, heedless of the risks to Kosovo's hard-won peace and stability. End Comment. KAIDANOW