Columnist Lumir Abdixhiku writes about a poll carried out this June by the Kosovo-based research institute “Riinvest” which he took part in and presents some of its findings. The poll that included 1,000 respondents, according to Abdixhiku, provides a clear picture of the relation between the citizens and the state and that it is the citizens’ routine of system refusal that has kept the distance between the Kosovars and the state. This is not only due to Kosovars always being in confrontation with the state but because their disobedience was developed as a social norm.

The main part of the poll was to find out the perception of the citizens towards Kosovo institutions and the results showed that KFOR, European Union, NGOs and media enjoy the highest level of credibility with the citizens of Kosovo and the fact that state institutions are not among this group is terrifying, considers Abdixhiku. He says the findings are an indicator that there is something wrong with decision-making institutions in Kosovo.

There are two explanations behind this situation with the first being that these state institutions have turned into clan groups that represents group gain to the detriment of everything else and this lead to the second explanation that includes an all-national division between all. “So instead of having national unity, we’ve built – mainly due to political convictions – a new split between classes in Kosovo”. This split, says Abdixhiku, is not between the rich and the poor but between those with differing political beliefs.

He says Kosovo urgently needs national unity as the divisions are becoming increasingly deeper and the more time passes, the more difficult it becomes to overcome these divisions as they get entrenched as social norms.