Week in Review: The Game of Elections

No Honeymoon

North Macedonia's new PM, Dimitar Kovacevski [C] surrounded by his government ministers. Photo: EPA/EFE-GEORGI LICOVSKI

Dimitar Kovacevski has not even celebrated a month in office as Prime Minister, yet he is already faced with a fight to stave off an attempt by the opposition VMRO-DPMNE to force an early election.

After its failed vote of confidence in the SDSM-led majority at the end of last year, the VMRO-DPMNE appears to have changed strategy. It is now seeking to peel away several smaller parties from the ruling coalition, with the seductive promise of changing the electoral system in line with long-standing demands by these same parties. This leaves the SDSM sandwiched between a rock and a hard place.

Read more: North Macedonia PM Faces Fight to Stave off Snap Election (February 4, 2022)

Time to Relent

Pedestrians cross the main bridge of the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica, Kosovo, September 3, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/VALDRIN XHEMAJ

Almost a decade has passed since the signing of the Brussels Agreement on normalising relations between Belgrade and Pristina, yet many of its requirements still remain unfulfilled. By far the biggest item that has not been implemented is the creation of an Association of Serb Municipalities in Kosovo.

Although signed up to by Kosovo, the Association - intended to give Kosovo's Serbs a degree of self-rule - has been met with bitter resistance from Kosovo's Albanian majority from the outset. Within the political elite, it was hard to find more outspoken opponents than current Prime Minister Albin Kurti. Yet now in power, Kurti is coming under growing international pressure to permit the Association's establishment. Will he relent?

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