National Politics

After the Election, Can Albin Kurti Be the Wind of Change Kosovo Needs?

Ramush Haradinaj, the former Prime Minister of Kosovo, resigned on the 19th of July after being summoned by the Specialist’s Prosecutor Office located in The Hague because of his implication in war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Kosovo War (1998-1999). With Kosovo’s Assembly, the unicameral parliament of the Republic of Kosovo, unable to choose the next prime minister, it voted for its disbanding in August. Elections were held on the 6th of October, which resulted in a victory for VV and the rise to power of Albin Kurti.

This election came at a difficult time in Kosovo. The dialogue with Belgrade had never been so intense compared to recent years with some specialists speculating about the odds of a land-swap between Belgrade and Pristina. The latter would be giving back the northern province of Kosovo populated by Serbs to the Republic of Serbia, while Belgrade would give the Preševo Valley in southern Serbia, populated by Albanians, to Kosovo.

While it may seem appealing at first, several specialists, politicians, and historians suggested this would be a dangerous thing to do as any land-swap, especially in a region with a history like the Balkans, could create further tensions considering other countries could revive heated border debates.

Kurti Blowing the Wind of Change?

The electoral results came as a semi-surprise. Low turnouts had been a common trend, following the poor governance and management of Kosovo over the past few years. Oddly enough, after the resignation of Haradinaj, the Kosovar diaspora in Europe, as well as Kosovar citizens living in their country, significantly mobilised themselves, hence the turnout of 43%; a significant increase compared to previous elections.

The results declared the Pan-Albanian, nationalist and social democrat party, Vetëvendosje! (‘Self-Determination’, reusing the motto of the 1968 protests in Kosovo) led Albin Kurti, as victors, winning 31 seats, resulting in a loss of one seat. Yet, with the higher turnout of voters, the Kosovar diaspora sanctioned “Commanders” politics that ruled Kosovo since its self-proclaimed independence in 2008.

A Tale of Domination

Political life in Kosovo has been dominated by the LDK (Democratic League of Kosovo) and the PDK (Democratic Party of Kosovo): two right-wing parties which have been led by former Kosovar independence advocates. The country’s president, Hashim Thaçi (PDK), was a prominent member of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Haradinaj, though not being a member of the PDK, was also a former KLA fighter who founded his own political group in 2001. The infighting between the two aforementioned parties plus the numerous cases of abuses of power explained the loss of interest in politics and especially, the rise in popularity of VV and its leader Albin Kurti prompting a serious blow for the traditional lawmakers in Kosovo.

Albin Kurti speaking to VV supporters the 6th of October after the results were published. Courtesy of l’Express

VV since its foundation in 2005, is extremely critical of the various government policies and was historically hostile to any dialogue with Belgrade on how to end the whole independence and self-determination crisis. One of their former mottos used to be ‘Jo Negociata: Vetëvendosje!or ‘No negotiations, self-determination’.

As of January 2020, no government has been formed with a stalemate beginning to worry international experts as well as lawmakers inside the country. Hashim Thaçi warned Albin Kurti that a government has to be formed in a very near future. VV has been in talks with the LDK since the results and if a government is formed with the two parties as coalition leaders, Kurti will likely be forced to enter the negotiation process simply because Kosovo cannot risk cancelling all the difficult talks that have occurred in previous years.

Albin Kurti: from Opponent to Prime Minister?

Albin Kurti isn’t exactly a new face in Kosovar politics. He was born in 1975 and growing up he became a student leader of the non-violent 1997 student protests in Pristina, the beginning of the chain of events that later led to the Kosovo war. Kurti became a political representative of the UÇK in 1998 during the war. A vocal opponent to Slobodan Milošević regime, he was arrested in 1999. In 2001, Zoran Đinđić’s Serb government announced a release of all political prisoners. Kurti returned to Kosovo and remained an active opponent to UNMIK and continued to advocate for total independence of Kosovo as well as a future merger with Albania.

He founded Vetëvendosje! in 2004 and the movement hasn’t stopped growing to this day. Kurti was arrested again alongside several high ranking party members in 2015 because VV blocked the process of normalising relations with Serbia in the Assembly and regularly protested. The most famous rebellious act of VV according to lawmakers is possibly the one that occurred in March 2018 when a tear gas canister was set off during a parliamentary session. With the electoral success that VV enjoyed a year later, the odds of Kurti becoming Prime Minister after being a central figure in Kosovar politics for two decades were very high.

Kurti
Albin Kurti in 1997. Courtesy of Balkan Insight

Serbian Enclaves and Minorities

In the north of Kosovo, where most of the Serbs enclaves are located, the Srpska Lista won the 10 seats reserved for the Serbian community living in the country. Srpska Lista is known for being the ‘puppet’ of Aleksandar Vučić’s SNS employing similar methods of coercion. Despite the organisation of an opposition movement, Sloboda (Liberty) regrouping Serbian citizens and parties tired of Belgrade’s stronghold, the campaign in Northern Kosovo was plagued with violence and coercion. Local thugs attacked people who were campaigning or who were simply partisans of Sloboda. Such actions remind many of what occurs in Serbia during elections as these methods are used by local SNS thugs: coercing people to vote for their party.

Despite Sloboda not winning any seats, Albin Kurti expressed his intentions to work with them, and rejected Srpska Lista, calling them Belgrade’s “remote-controlled arm in Kosovo”. For most leaders and important figures of Sloboda Lista, as well as Albin Kurti, the dialogue with the Serbs has to be done locally. Nenad Rašić, one of Sloboda’s leaders, insisted that an Albano-Serbian reconciliation has to be made within Kosovar institutions and the dialogue has to be re-established between the populations; therefore fighting against sectarianism.

The View from the Other Side

Rada Trajković, Sloboda’s leader, saluted the Kurti initiative to fight and give “no rest” to organised crime and tweeted about the results, calling the future Premier the “first regional politician since Zoran Đinđić [who was assassinated in 2003] to tackle organised crime and war criminals”. Such a declaration created a fuss in Serbia and attacks from SNS-owned media outlets were launched towards Sloboda.

The constitution of Kosovo requires the government to work with the Serb minority; at least one cabinet position has to be offered to them. Since Sloboda didn’t win any seats, Srpska Lista, designated as an enemy by Albin Kurti and VV, was the only path that the government could choose with regards to working with the Serbian community. The problem is, presently, unsolved.

While the recount of the vote has concluded, it is very likely that the future government will need the support of another minority party to form the government; either Bosniak, Ashkenazi Jew, Turkish or Romanis, who may be all interested in a cabinet position as well.

Rada Trajković, leader of Sloboda.

Kurti vs Thaçi

The stand-off between the future Prime Minister and the actual Kosovar President, Hashim Thaçi, may be significant. Kurti and VV, as stated before, historically opposed any normalisation of the relations with Belgrade, something that Thaçi has been favourable of. Kurti was arrested in 2015 alongside several colleagues because the party continued to block resolutions aimed at opening negotiations with the Serbian government.

Close to coming to power, Kurti has somewhat softened his positions on the matter but more so than Thaçi and,  indeed, confirmed that he plans to take the role of the main negotiator; a role that Thaçi has held since the election in 2016. The tensions between the two figures, politically opposed on almost all domains, will possibly result in tensions running high within the executive at least until the presidential elections are held in 2021. The fact that Thaçi was implicated or has been accused by several actors to be involved in criminal activities also explains the distrust expressed by Kurti.

What Now?

With Kosovo’s government in its formation stage, we can only speculate on what will happen. It is very likely that Kurti will prove himself to be more “aggressive” and more vindicative during the negotiations as he announced that he expected “reciprocity coming from Belgrade”.

With VV hostile to the possible land-swap Thaçi was a partisan of, there will undoubtedly be more debates to come because of this decision. Kurti stated in an interview with Radio Free Europe that a land-swap was a: “racist idea against all democratic ideas.” Belgrade hasn’t commented on the VV victory and is still, after three months, silent despite the stalemate.

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Josselin Pérouse

Student of history and geopolitics, language-lover and strong believer that humankind can do good. Likes to write alternate history and explore the world of "What ifs"

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