The thirteenth Public Pulse Brief was conducted in October 2017 in Kosovo which measures perception of citizens on the important issues and provides opinions of citizens on the performance of the government of Kosovo and other public Institutions.
The latest poll results show an increase in satisfaction with the performance of Kosovo institutions, even though the overall satisfaction levels with Kosovo’s political orientation remains low.
About 36% of Kosovars seem to be satisfied with the legislative, executive, and judicial institutions combined. Satisfaction levels with the work of the Prime Minister are 42%, while the citizens’ satisfaction with President’s performance is 38%. Both institutions see an increase in satisfaction level compared with the results from 2016 (Figure 1).
On the other hand, even though the dissatisfaction significantly decreased, a majority of Kosovars are still not satisfied with the political direction in which Kosovo is headed (43%). What is interesting that every third citizen is willing to join public protests for political reasons (36%), however that number is much higher for Kosovo Albanians (38,5%) than for Kosovo Serbs (6%).
Also, the Public Pulse measures Democratization Index (DI) and Economic Confidence Index (ECI), which track Kosovars’ opinions of democratic practices (voting, freedom of expression, etc.) and perceptions of prevailing economic conditions, on a scale of 0, being the lowest, to 3, being the highest scores. Current DI (1.37) has reached the highest level since November 2010, however, it indicates that the majority of Kosovans do not have positive opinions about the democratic processes.
Similarly, the ECI is at 1.22 which again demonstrates that the majority have no confidence in the economy (they view economic conditions unfavorably and they are less optimistic about the future of the economy).
Next, more than 65% of Kosovars consider that the largest problems facing Kosovo today are unemployment, corruption, and poverty. Asked about merit-based employment possibilities, the majority of Kosovars (79%) believe that family connections, bribes, party alliances, and other non-merit based factors are most helpful in gaining employment in the public sector, which is a worrying information. In addition, central administration is perceived as the most corrupt compared with other national and international institutions. It is interesting that citizens see EULEX Police as more corrupt than local Kosovo Police.
And finally, the latest part of the report explored attitudes of citizens towards voting. Unfortunately, it reveals pessimistic attitudes where a significantly high number of respondents believe that their vote cannot change the situation in Kosovo (38%) or do not know whether their vote can change the situation in Kosovo (24%).