Whatever the result of Sunday's election, the next government will have to tackle increasing poverty and counter the threats of renewed ethnic violence in the country's north.
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00:00Kosmans are set to head to the polls amidst an ailing economy and reignited ethnic tensions
00:07between Albanians and Serbs, with legislative elections taking place this Sunday.
00:14Forecasts predict ethnic Albanian Prime Minister Albin Kursi could win a slim majority.
00:19Whatever the result, the next government will have to tackle increasing poverty to counter
00:24the threat of rising ethnic violence in the north.
00:29There is no ethnic conflict in Kosovo.
00:33There is an economic problem in Kosovo, which Kosovo should solve for all communities in Kosovo.
00:43That means for Albanians, Serbs, Bosniaks, Turks, so to raise the standard of living.
00:52That is the biggest problem. How?
00:55A recent World Bank report has Kosovo as the European country where the poverty rate is being reduced the slowest.
01:03Ordinary people struggle against inflation and a failed economy, according to this Serbian activist.
01:13On a high level, with politicians, with the government in Pristina, with the government in Belgrade,
01:19it's pretty much stuck and going nowhere.
01:23But on the low level, people are interacting, people are, you know, living their lives simply.
01:34Outgoing Prime Minister Kursi and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic have been criticized
01:39for revamped polarization between Pristina and Serbs.
01:44It's quite open, despite the fact that when you're a journalist, you tend to be more...
01:48What he, at least till this stage, failed is to make people living in the north to basically embrace his policies.
02:00And that is a difficult, and the most difficult step, I think, because, as we know, the people in the north of Kosovo,
02:09not that they are only controlled by Belgrade, but their pensions, their health care and education system is being paid by Serbia.
02:19The result of decades of unresolved conflict following Kosovo's war of independence from Serbia
02:24is structural economic problems pushing educated young people to migrate elsewhere in Europe.
02:31Kosovo currently depends on the international donations.
02:35And, I mean, without those international donations, Kosovo will not be sustainable at all.
02:45It's like one of the poorest economies in Europe.