As Serbia heads toward the October 25 parliamentary elections, Kosovo is once again being dragged into nationalist campaigning. Promises to raise the Serbian flag in Prizren and Milan Radoičić’s appearance at an election rally expose how Kosovo is being used to mobilize voters through provocation, territorial claims and nationalist sentiment.
Prizren is not a campaign slogan, and Kosovo’s sovereignty is not up for debate every time Serbian politicians need votes. Yet instead of breaking with the politics that have kept the region trapped in conflict, Serbia’s campaign is recycling the same old ambitions — with Radoičić still appearing in the political spotlight.
When a country’s politicians need to weaponize another country’s sovereignty to win votes, it says everything about the politics they are selling.
