Will Albin Kurti be able to get rid of Vjosa Osmani, as the “US president” in Kosovo

Will Albin Kurti be able to get rid of Vjosa Osmani as the “US president” in Kosovo?

Written by: Mero Baze

Prime Minister Albin Kurti has today launched the process of consulting with the opposition regarding the election of the president of Kosovo. It is a formal process in the conditions of a deep division between the divided opposition and Albin Kurti’s consolidated government.

The election of the president is important to avoid Kosovo going to elections for the third time in almost a year and a half, confirming on the one hand Albin Kurti’s stable majority and on the other the consolidated instability of the Republic of Kosovo, which has continued to hold elections for more than a year without changing anything.

The whole debate is whether a president will be elected in agreement with the opposition, or whether an attempt will be made to elect a president of Albin Kurti through bargaining with individuals from the opposition.

Procedurally, Kosovo needs a quorum of 80 people in the first two rounds of voting for the president and in the third round it needs a minimum of 61 votes to be elected. Albin Kurti has the votes to elect the president in the third round.
The whole secret is whether he will collect 30 signatures for Vjosa Osmani to enter the race or whether he will leave this to the opposition, giving a signal that he does not want Vjosa Osmani as president.

All that Vjosa Osmani has produced in her mandate as president is a different stance from Albin Kurti only in relation to the US. And recently in Washington she received new support from President Trump, who mentioned that “if you have a problem with Serbia, call me”, a signal that she is their man in Kosovo.

So the situation becomes even more provocative for Albin Kurti. He has to accept a US president in Kosovo, which becomes even more provocative when he also receives support from Edi Rama.

For this reason, the talks with the opposition are formal. They are only taking place because Albin Kurti has not made up his mind whether or not to make Vjosa president. If he had made up his mind, he would collect 30 signatures and if he fails in the first two rounds, he would elect him president in the third round.

The opposition, for its part, is divided at this point, not about Osman but about their future. Ramush Haradinaj has sought to become president, but there is still no consensus for him from PDK and LDK. This creates more space for Albin Kurti to avoid boycotting the first two sessions as the only way to fail the election of the president.

So now, more than a test to elect the president, the process of electing the president is a test of the relations between Vjosa Osmani and Albin Kurti.

Vjosa Osmani’s political faction within the Kurti government is not with her. Donika Gërvalla would be happy if she were not elected president.

Albin Kurti would also be happy to elect someone from the Jashari family so that the government looks patriotic and there are no more intermediaries to talk to Washington and Brussels other than himself. So this whole process is not so much a process to elect Vjosa Osmani, but a process of Albin Kurti trying to get rid of his intermediaries with Washington and Brussels, so that they only talk to him.

And to be clear, if new elections are held, which would be a scandal, it is not so much because of the opposition, but because of Albin Kurti’s impatience with Vjosa Osmani, who is trying to impose herself as the US president in Kosovo. And this gets on his nerves because he won the majority he has by fighting against the US.