During the summer of 2020, D4D conducted a survey of the Kosovo’s party officials’ opinions, measuring them on 40 different topics, used to assess the ideological orientation of the four main parties in Kosovo. The findings show that parties have not undergone major shifts. PDK and LDK remain centered and slightly to the right. Small shifts were marked by VV and AAK, which moved to the right and the left respectfully. Six years ago VV was quite a leftist party and AAK was fairly right, whereas now they are in an identical position. In general, the differences between the parties are not large.
Often the differences within the parties are greater and this proves that officials do not join parties due to its attitudes on concrete public policy issues such as the ones we measure. The proximity of activists to a party is more to do with the fact that a relative of theirs is a member or a decision-maker in that party, or due to geographical affinity, and in the past also due to their positioning during the war period, or attitudes towards the dialogue and Serbia.
The new study shows that the entire political scene has moved towards the center (from both left and right). The majority (2/3 for three parties other than the LDK still remain in the statist quadrant (left conservatives). There are almost no conservatives in terms of values and rightists in terms of economic principles. Most of the remaining one-third, who are more open about their personal values, also believe in a free market economy. The above description applies to LDK, PDK and AAK, while Vetëvendosje is left-wing economically, conservative on the issue of identity and liberal on personal freedoms. This clearly shows that concrete public policies are not determinative of party orientation and that internally the parties are as diverse as when compared to others.
