Kosovo’s interpretation

In his interview to the Times the Prime Minister of Kosovo Hashim Thaci has provided a rather strange and bizarre interpretation of the judgment of the ICJ regarding the autonomy of Kosovo. During he interview Mr Thaci appealed on the remaining 5 countries in the European Union (Spain, Cyprus, Slovakia, Greece and Romania) to recognise Kosovo as a sovereign state stating that by not doing so they are breaking international law.

To hear such an interpretation of the ICJ’s judgment is quite staggering, even more so when a Prime Minister of a country recognised by another 69 states makes it. The ICJ judgment simply stated that as there is no international law regulating the one-sided proclamation of sovereignty and because of the specific situation in the Balkan region the steps taken by Kosovo do not go against international law. The judgment was reported in the newspapers as giving credibility to the sovereignty of Kosovo and that the declaration was ‘in line with international law’.

It is easy to see that the newspaper headlines did water down the judgment quite significantly. However it is another thing entirely for Mr Thaci to interpret it in a way that anyone who doesn’t recognise Kosovo is breaking international law. Yet again one needs to point out to the absence of international law on the issue. Thus if there being no international law to govern this means that Kosovo’s declaration of independence is in line with international law then also it must mean that other states not recognising this is also in line with international law. Why? Simply because there is no law to mandatory state what should and what should not be done.

Such a misinterpretation of a judgment by a high government official can severely damage the image of the country and even make it seem as if Kosovo was making threats to the above mentioned five countries, never mind the fact that the judgment was of advisory nature only. But since we’re talking about breaking the law here, maybe Mr Thaci should also look at the domestic law of Serbia that Kosovo is breaking by its existence and then lecture other states on how to be law-abiding countries.

Death of the Dinosaurs

Yesterday the results of the general elections in the Czech Republic have been announced. These elections have led to some bizarre results to anyone who is familiar to the political landscape. However the message from the elections is one that every nation should carefully study.

The run-up to the elections has been unorthodoxly too long. The campaign started last summer, with the vision of having early elections in October. This was due to the fall of the previous center-right government (during the presidency of the EU, you might remember). Thus a technocratic government of experts was put together to last till the early elections in October. However, since holding the elections this late after the fall of the government were unconstitutional the Constitutional Court has held that the elections need to be held at their proper date. And so the campaigning continued…

The election results that were announced are as follows: Social Democracts 22.1%, Citizens Democratic Party (a  center-right party) 20.2%, TOP 09 (center-right, conservative) 16.7%, Communists 11.4%, ‘Public Things’(centrist) 10.9%. Don’t let all the strange names fool you. The percentages and the parties as such are not important. What is important is that following the announcement of the results four party leaders resigned their positions. First of these was the leader of the oldest party in the Czech republic, the Christian Democrats-People’s Party, which did not cross the 5% threshold for entering the parliament for the first time since the fall of communism. Second was the former Prime Minister from 1998-2002 Milos Zeman, whose new party also did not cross the 5% threshold. Last of the leaders of the parties who did get into the parliament was the leader of the Green Party.

However the resignation did not end there. The leader of the Social Democrats, the winning party in the elections, has resigned his position due to the fact that his style of politics has ruled out the Social Democrats from any coalition by the other parties apart from the Communist Party. This would be possible were the Social Democrats to get 30% or 35%, which they looked likely to get in the polls prior to the elections. The heads were also rolling in the the Citizens Democratic Party which lost the constituency of Prague for the first time ever since the fall of communism to TOP 09, with the head of the Prague branch resigning.

So to recap, we have 5 prominent politicians resigning after one election. One also has to take into consideration the resignation of the leader of Citizens Democrats two months prior to the elections and only 85 MPs out total of 200 retaining their seats. Some high ranking politicians were rejected by the people who put preferential votes behind new candidates and thus completely redid the lists that the parties submitted for elections. And of course it has to be pointed out that both TOP 09 and ‘Public Things’ are brand new parties, formed only about a year ago. Thus out of the 5 parties in in the parliament only the Communist have retained their leader.

It is fascinating to think how the will of the people has managed to transform the landscape of Czech politics during one elections. The people sent a clear message to let the parties and politicians. For the first time in quite a while the voice of the people has clearly been voiced and listened to by the politicians. What begins now is a new age in the Czech politics. The people now know when they feel frustration and anger at the political establishment they can actually go and do something about it. This goes against the age-old frustration of the people who feel that they have no one to vote for, or that they cannot change anything.

The new list system that is being used in Czech republic and Slovakia, where the people can put preferential votes behind their candidate who can then skip ahead of the ‘queue’, thus not letting some prominent politicians who the people do not trust has allowed for a new age to begin. An age after the death of the political dinosaurs.