A role conceived as largely ceremonial has taken on a weight that exceeds its own competences. The president has become the nexus of the political crisis in Kosovo, leading the country towards new elections, but with no guarantee that they will produce a solution. According to observers, the vote can only bring results in a certain configuration – otherwise, it risks reproducing the same stalemate that has dragged on for months.

The June 7 elections are the end of a long chain of institutional and political failures: from the failure to elect a president within the constitutional deadline and the decree dissolving the Assembly, to the decisions of the Constitutional Court, fruitless meetings between political leaders, names proposed without consensus, boycotts of sessions, and continuous clashes between the government and the opposition.

For the party currently in power, the Vetevendosje Movement, which won over 51 percent of the vote in the December 28 elections, the responsibility for this blockade falls on the opposition, or, as its leader, Albin Kurti, describes it, the "opposition bloc", which, according to him, has acted in a coordinated manner against Vetevendosje.

"Forcing a million citizens to go to the ballot boxes again, just four months after they expressed their will in a plebiscite, which someone does not like... They want to adapt the people to their whims, but this is impossible," Kurti told his supporters. From the opposition's perspective, Kurti, despite his strong electoral mandate, has avoided political compromise and has chosen confrontation as a course of action.

According to Bedri Hamza, the leader of the PDK, the largest opposition party, he has pushed the country towards new elections, with the aim of further strengthening the position of Vetëvendosje. “He is asking for submission, not cooperation. He is asking for our support not for the state, but for his power. Not for the stability of the country, but for his political stability,” Hamza said in a video message published on his social media.

The LDK, as the third party in power, has already determined the two main candidacies for the upcoming race: its leader, Lumir Abdixhiku, as candidate for prime minister, and former president Vjosa Osmani as candidate for president, although the latter is not a constitutional obligation, as the president is elected in the Assembly.

But, in an electoral process that has de facto been driven by the failure to elect a president, these appointments have taken on increased political weight. Osmani, who in 2021 ran on a joint list with Kurti, is now openly positioned against him, following the breakdown of cooperation and the lack of support for a second presidential term. “There is one thing that the history of this people has always taught us: the roads closed by cowards are always opened by the people, and it is the people who know the truth,” Osmani said in an appearance before her supporters.

The people, in fact, perceive the truth in their own way.

On June 7, he will head to the polls for the fifth time in a year and a half, including a pair of regular parliamentary elections, a pair of early elections and two rounds of local elections. For some voters in Pristina, surveyed for Radio Free Europe's Expose program, the vote remains the only means of political influence, but with less and less trust in a race that, they say, is no longer measured by programs, but by names and personal accounts.

"I think that not only for president, but also for prime minister, parties should not put forward names. They should put the program in the foreground and whoever wins, nominate a candidate who can achieve those objectives," says Behxhet Halili.

"Here, the war with names... as if we have entered into some kind of competition to realize the ambitions of individuals," he adds.

“If we don’t go out to vote, we can neither criticize nor support… Voting is the obligation of every citizen,” according to Elmaze Gashi. “I will go out to vote, and there is little chance of change,” says her fellow citizen, Agim Mjeku. “I will vote so that I don’t lose my vote. I don’t believe that anything will be resolved, we will go to the polls again. This is my opinion,” he adds.

And this is also the opinion of Abit Hoxha, a lecturer and researcher at Agder University in Norway, who says that Kosovo risks a repeated cycle of political crises, due to the lack of compromise between parties. He emphasizes that the system is built for co-governance and political agreement, not dominance, which is why he considers the presidential candidacies before the elections to be hasty.

“The position of the president of Kosovo is fulfilled through the Kosovo Assembly and presidential candidacies are not 'greasy' for the mill of political compromise,” Hoxha tells Exposé. In this context, he sees the LDK's action with Osmani more as a move driven by internal party interests, rather than as a real candidacy that produces compromise. “It is a designation purely for political consumption, it is not practical, because the president must be elected as part of a political compromise and must be negotiated. You cannot have a presidential candidate who negotiates the presidential candidate,” Hoxha says.

In a seemingly similar situation, Osmani was also in 2021, when she was acting president of Kosovo. She joined the election race on a joint list with Kurti's Vetëvendosje Movement, aiming for the post of president, while Kurti was aiming for the post of prime minister. "Today and for the next four years, but also beyond these four years, we are determined to fight uncompromisingly against corruption and organized crime in the country, to build a state that prioritizes education and health, environmental protection and the well-being of each and every one of you, ensuring a fair, inclusive and innovative economic recovery," Osmani said on January 14, 2021.

Their ambitions for key positions were realized after the February 14 elections of that year, but the political partnership began to falter even before a single term had ended.

For Donika Emini, from the Balkan Policy Advisory Group in Europe, the 2021 model has been unprecedented and fundamentally symbolic, since in a parliamentary system like Kosovo, the position of president is not determined at the ballot box, but through political agreements in the Assembly. Even Osman's current candidacy, according to her, does not change this logic. "Whether we had these names or not, the configuration, the outcome of the elections will determine how these political forces will navigate around each other. As a symbolic thing, it may have an effect on the electorate, but it is not necessarily a solution to the political crisis if we have a name in advance," Emini estimates for Exposena.

She adds that Osmani, moreover, has no political offer, but mainly a counter-response to Vetëvendosje, which, as she says, could end up strengthening the latter. According to her, PDK, with its refusal to cooperate with Nisma and the lack of new political influences, could also affect Vetëvendosje's electoral growth. "If it potentially happens that the Vetëvendosje Movement, also with the help of the diaspora, grows as a political party, then its negotiating power will be greater and there will not be much room for political maneuvers like we have seen in the past two years," says Emini.

She emphasizes that only in such a scenario could the current crisis be resolved, but warns that it would come at a cost to political pluralism and democracy itself, and therefore would not be healthy.

According to her, breaking the deadlock only requires greater awareness from the political class that Kosovo is a multi-party system, built by the Constitution to function on the basis of consensus. With Kurti insisting on a unifying and non-partisan president, Hoxha does not see such a disposition between the parties even close. He estimates that a political agreement can only come in exceptional circumstances. “The only way to build a political compromise in Kosovo is a bigger challenge… a problem in the north, an act against the state of Kosovo, a sabotage, a major threat. Something like that could unite the political factor, otherwise I do not see the political will for compromise,” says Hoxha.

Currently, the acting president is the Speaker of the Parliament, Albulena Haxhiu. According to the Constitution, this mandate cannot last more than six months, but it is not clearly defined what happens if a president with full powers is not elected within this period. And, such a situation, according to a statement by Kurti on April 24, a few days before the announcement of the June 7 elections, cannot be completely ruled out. “If we go to the elections in June and the Vetëvendosje Movement with its partners – GUXO, Alternative for Minorities – does not reach 80 MPs, then we will go to the elections again in the fall or winter. Who benefits from this?” Kurti asked.

Maybe to no one, maybe to someone, but certainly not to the political stability of Kosovo… although, according to Abit Hoxha, the country has transformed into a system that “functions in crisis”, but which is essentially experiencing stagnation. According to him, the lack of strategic decision-making and compromise has created a situation where “the country is moving in the opposite direction”, while losing development opportunities and international support./REL