By Blerim Abedini, Institute for Security Studies and Development, ISSD-NM– The world moves with a modest development while politics is stuck with a discourse due to not finding a solution to social issues. The information obtained from the digital network has influenced the acceleration of technological development in all parts of the world.
This non-parallel development of technological advancement to political reform has brought to the surface blockers or people of interest who want to continue their lives with corruption. In the digital century, it is possible to detect illegal transactions through security services, such as money laundering, information related to criminality, those involved in crimes, illegal agreements of state officials, etc.
The national secret service can reveal this information in cooperation with international secret services. However, the political elite, to isolate corruption or illegal deals, also manipulates the judges by assigning their positions in the court, in an insidious way! This trend has now captured the whole world, so much so that a politician is not ashamed to speak in front of the media, even though he is called in public opinion as a corrupter or a dictator!
Corrupt politicians have a wide range of manipulations, from disinformation to the opening of war crises. We have cases of spreading disinformation about the opposition to be eliminated from the parliamentary elections, as is done with the opposition in Russia by removing it from the elections due to the so-called “anti-state politics”. Also, the opening of conflicts with neighboring countries, to diverts the attention of its residents from protests and coups.
Here we can mention the case of how Benjamin Netanyahu started the military conflict through the government crisis as well as to divert the public’s attention to the corruption court hearings. We have another case in Serbia, where election results were falsified for victory and to lose the population’s trust in the opposition. Aleksandar Vucich, to refocus attention on the falsification of election results, could not in this case open a war crisis in Kosovo and Bosnia because the manipulated parliamentary elections were confirmed by international organizations that observed the electoral process, as well as criticized by the bodies of European Union.
This is a black mark that will complicate the negotiations for Serbia’s accession to the EU. In other cases in the world, we have autocratic states like North Korea led by Kim Jong Un, who makes military propaganda to refocus the people from the difficult living conditions. Also, the president of Venezuela acts similarly, silencing the voice of the opposition and requesting international arrest for the leader who lives in exile in Florida, USA.
The world knows many autocratic leaders who lead the state at the expense of the people.
We notice that the corrupt political elite wants to hide the crimes committed in the past, by extending the governing mandate with manipulative methods. Such a situation – to live at the expense of taxpayers, is also approved by a part of the state judges, who receive a percentage from the “realized” corruption. In this view, the chosen judges are framed in the game as weak players and loyal to the leader, in a deliberate defeat. So, every extension of the life of the corrupt political elite, it manages to expand the community with people who stay, forcing them to participate in the implementation of corrupt affairs with the threat that they will be expelled from work in the administration.
With the war going on in Ukraine, Russia is forced to close many businesses it had in Europe as well as the opposite- many international businesses that were in Russia were closed by Euro-American businessmen. The domino effect of corruption exists in the EU, as it is Poland that had corrupt affairs before the new prime minister Mr. Tusk, as well as Slovakia, which currently has a corrupt government together with Hungary, even though the EU has often criticized them.
The Balkans are still involved in nationalism even after three decades of the Yugoslav War. The free movement of citizens is limited only to state regions where there is cultural diversity or a pure ethnic environment. In this case, traders cannot be included in the free market to find the products with a preferential price. So, although a different image of the state is shown to international institutions, the opposite is happening inside!
There is corruption, isolated with nationalist jargon and populism, which manages to increase the number of voters to secure another mandate. The current Balkan governments in most countries are inherited from the politicians of the former Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, who have accumulated capital like a successful businessman for three decades.
Although some states are members of the EU, sometimes the economic interest and the comfort they find in the leadership of the state, give motivation to the heads of state to continue with corrupt methods, building new houses, buying luxury cars, often on private trips, vacations luxury summer, etc. Therefore, the privatization of state companies did not bring progress to the countries with socialist economies, thus the political-economic project for the transformation of the socialist economy experienced a fiasco. Many workers who thought that the privatization law would continue the abandoned jobs, were only promises and disappointments.
With the privatization law, politicians and directors with a communist spirit, who were “migratory birds” from the former Yugoslav state and the Soviet Union, increased their wealth. This is evidenced by many consecutive bankruptcies of the privatized company. There we can see magnificent abandoned objects, such as textile processing departments, companies with abandoned objects of raw materials, aluminum, car accumulators, car shock absorbents, household equipment, agricultural cooperatives, cinemas, theaters, etc.
These properties of former state businesses have often been sold to foreign businessmen. There is a small number of resident businessmen who do not employ many workers. Larger jobs are made by multinational companies, operating in EU member or non-member states. In different regions, several industries can be seen tendered by the state, such as the mining of natural minerals for the production of sand for construction, the production of cement, lime, coal, hydro-power plants, and thermal power plants, which are businesses that are far from the interest of citizens due to the lack of employment.
So, after the privatization of state-owned businesses, companies with thousands of employees went bankrupt in the Balkan Peninsula, and they also failed in the international and stock markets. It is characteristic of the poor Balkan economies that in the national stock market, national-resident companies such as banks, tobacco factories, and vehicle and household fuel companies, do not dare to join the international stock exchanges.
From these circumstances, migration for employment was born, which mainly takes place in Europe and the United States. With this migration, the employment policy of national governments has been facilitated. Among other things, it can be noted that the Employment Entities in the various municipalities have no activity for the employment of citizens because one thing is not possible due to the small number of jobs.
We note that the government and municipalities employ political sympathizers in public administration as well as in educational schools. Consequently, those who do not migrate for work in the EU, join through political parties to work in state administration or public state companies.
