Size matters (when you vote)
A week full of vote-casting, but also forbidden books, dinosaur-mayors and unusual desserts.
Good morning everybody,
Welcome back to Balkan Brew, the newsletter with your weekly Balkan grind served warm every Friday morning.
This week, ballots are staging a comeback in the Balkans, from local elections in Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina to a crucial referendum on the EU accession of Moldova. To sweeten all this—did you know how the popular torta tres leches conquered the Balkans? After years of research, the truth is out.
ON OUR MIND RIGHT NOW. On Tuesday, Israel invaded Lebanon, and the Middle East is getting closer to an all-out war. The developments caused surprisingly small waves in the region, except in Turkey. While our hearts—and our fears—are there, we will be talking about this war only in regards to its repercussions in the Balkans.
EDIT: this text previously indicated that Fikret Abdić spent 12 years in prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Abdić was found guilty by a Croatian court in 2002 and remained in jail until 2012. The text has been edited to correct that mistake.
Size matters (when you vote)
Citizens in Bosnia and Herzegovina are preparing to cast their vote in the local elections on Sunday. But—as in many other places, to be fair— politics doesn’t exactly warm the spirits. Politicians in the country are famous for being all too distant from the everyday life (and needs) of voters - so much so that they seem to live increasingly “in a parallel reality”, as this report nicely put it.
SORRY TO SEE YOU GO. NOT. For the first time, convicted war criminals won’t stand for elections after High Representative Christian Schmidt pressed changes to the Election Law last March.
Among them is Fikret Abdić, who was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and won’t be able to stand for a third mayoral term in Velika Kladuša.
ALL BY MYSELF. Meet the 12 (candidate) mayors who will run alone in the next local elections …
… and the longest-serving Bosnian mayor, who—as far as we can tell from this article by Klix—is the current mayor of Teočak, Tajib Muminović. Muminović was first elected in 1994 when 50 per cent of the authors of this newsletter weren’t even born.
SIZE MATTERS. Last Sunday’s local elections in Montenegro’s capital, Podgorica, were won by the main opposition party, the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS)-which called for the current government coalition to resign.
If you are wondering why a loss in local elections might be enough to justify a governmental crisis, well, that’s because Montenegro is a pretty small country, and voters in Podgorica represent around ¼ of the total.
East is east
SHOR OF MONEY. Citizens of Moldova will vote in a crucial referendum in a few weeks to decide whether they support or not the EU integration of their country. A pro-Russian magnate, Ilan Shor, currently exiled to Russia, offered up to 375 EUR to people who would “convince as many people as possible at their polling station” to vote ‘no’ in the referendum. The Moldovan government replied by telling its citizens to shun “thieves, fugitives and bandits” who are “using propaganda to spread lies about the European Union”.
SPEAKING ABOUT THE BEAR. Croatia will not take part in a NATO exercise in Germany, which is meant to train Ukrainian soldiers fighting against Russia. President Zoran Milanovic refused to take part in the exercise, noting that it “might push Croatia into a war” against Russia.
JUST THE TWO OF US. Croatia is one of the only two NATO’s 32 member countries not participating in the exercise. We are pretty confident you can guess the other one.
The pen is mightier than the sword
Turkish novelist Yavuz Ekinci will soon face trial because of a novel he published in 2014, Rüyası Bölünenler (which should roughly translate as “Interrupted Dreams”), Le Courrier des Balkans reported this week. The book tells the story of two Kurdish brothers: one of them flees to Germany to avoid political persecution, while the other one joins the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, which is considered a terrorist organization by the Turkish government.
AGAINST TERRORISM (AND CRITICAL THINKING). In 2018, Turkey adopted a new law against terrorism, which punishes the persons guilty of making propaganda in favor of a terrorist organization with imprisonment of up to 5 years. The law has been repeatedly exploited to prosecute journalists and critical voices—Turkey constantly ranks as one of the worst countries when it comes to Media Freedom: “all possible means are used to undermine critics”, according to Reporters Without Borders.
IN OTHER NEWS.
The first mission of the newly established NATO’s Allied Reaction Force started this week in the Western Balkans. Lasting until October 16, it aims to conduct training and ensure its readiness to support the NATO-led Kosovoforce.
Farmers in Serbia are protesting against the government and asking for financial support to cover damages caused by this year’s drought. Although it may not be framed that way, this sounds to us like one of the first climate-change-induced protests in the region.
25 Albanian members of Parliament from the opposition have been accused of destruction of property after they burned chairs inside the chamber. 24 of them were expelled from the Parliament for up to 60 days.
AND FINALLY. Croatia is the EU country with the highest estimated average age of people leaving their parental home, at 31.8 years, according to EUROSTAT. Greece is not far behind, though—young Greeks leave their parental home at 30.6 years, on average.
GIVE ME SOME SUGAR. Here at Balkan Brew, we love journalists on a mission. If you ever wonder why the torta tres leches, a cake originally from Latin America, is so popular all over the Balkans, Kosovo 2.0 might have the answer. Altim Raxhimi spent several years wondering and wandering until he came up with some possible explanations.
This is all for this week. Reach out to us for any advice, questions, or news we might have missed. If you like Balkan Brew, support our work by forwarding this newsletter. If you’re new, you can subscribe here 👇
Until next time, you have a sweet week.
BB