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By:
Flaka Surroi
- March 21 2026 08: 00
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The level of political irresponsibility and the focus of all attention on power automatically distracts attention from all the other things that are happening around. They distract from the state systems that should take care of the development of society and keep it healthy. That should prevent the creation of gaps that are easily filled by others, and that have nothing to do with the state.
Friday. As if it were Sunday. No movement in any corner of the center. The chance of the year, probably, to go out by car and get work done as quickly as possible, if you can. You can hardly find anything open anywhere. Because even if something was open, there would hardly be customers coming in and out. As if it were the days of the pandemic, when we were forbidden to go out.
It is a religious holiday – one of six out of eleven recognized by the Law on Official Holidays of a secular state. And year after year, what is emerging is the ever-increasing influence of religion on society. Without a doubt, religion or not, faith or not, are personal choices of each person. And that is how it should be. And it should remain so.
How this work will develop in the coming years will depend largely on the executive branch that will lead this country. How tolerant it will be to change school hours to accommodate fasting children or to the immediate and collective "sickening" of teaching staff, right on the night of Eid, to dismiss children from school even an hour early. Or even to the instructions within institutions that allow civil servants, or rather civil servants, not to return from their lunch break, the day before the official holiday. Or even to demolish school buildings and replace them with religious temples...
Much will depend on how much attention they will pay to a degraded education system even in conditions when there are ever fewer students who pass through this system. Or whether they will perhaps continue with the idea of every executive who has led this country since liberation – that poor education facilitates control over the masses. Instead of strengthening education as a means to reach further and with greater quality.
Much will depend on the orientation that will be given to society and its influence in defining the nature of the state we want to have – will we remain a secular republic with all the flaws that have manifested in the meantime, or will we take another direction. Whatever the choice, let it be made, preferably, without violent "revolutions".
also The Republic in Free Fall
* * *
If the new head of state must be elected according to what the Constitution says, the election must take place 30 days before the expiration of the mandate, ie on April 5. It is already evident that the VV is adhering to the agreement with the Guxo List and will propose Vjosa Osmani as a candidate. To be elected, there must be at least 80 deputies in the hall and there must be 80 ballots in the ballot box.
The key is in the LDK - the participation of 15 of its MPs in the session and the casting of the vote, even if they abstain or against, should be enough, in addition to the 9 votes of the non-Serbian minorities. 82 votes would be secured, sufficient for a quorum.
The LDK has yet to meet once again with Vjosa Osmani to finally decide how it will act, but now, international pressure, however discreet it sounds, is showing that the priority over the priorities for Kosovo is the choice of all the bearers of institutions and stopping successive political crises.
The election of Osman or whoever could secure the necessary votes to proceed with the election would complete a cycle of major political accidents that we have experienced since liberation.
I wrote this five years ago in the March 26, 2021, issue. It was a description of the situation created before the early elections held on February 14, 2021, where VV had 58 MPs, PDK 19, LDK 15, and AAK 8. Among minorities, LS had 10 and another 10 were distributed among other communities.
We already know the story – Osmani was elected, mainly thanks to LDK MPs who secured the necessary quorum. Five years later, things have changed. There is no Kurti-Osmani agreement, while the number of seats has changed only slightly: VV has 57 MPs, PDK 22, LDK 15 and AAK 6. Among minorities, LS has 9 and 11 are distributed between other communities and Rashiq's party. Let us recall that even in 2021, the winner of the elections has held all three highest state positions.
But, this time, the diverse interpretation of the two provisions caused the issue to go to the Constitutional Court and the further procedure to depend on the latter.
If the Constitutional Court decides that Osman's decree is unconstitutional and that the procedure within the 30-day deadline has been initiated but not completed, the ball will once again be turned over to the opposition and the Constitutional Court's ruling that obliges MPs to establish a quorum and vote or abstain.
This, of course, if the Constitution does not foresee a sanction for "what if MPs do not participate in the vote" and if the opposition parties are determined to hold new parliamentary elections within a relatively short period of time.
And, once again, where would it be proven that the politicians' proclaimed love for Kosovo is not just proclaimed, but is real.
Because the biggest loser of the protracted political crisis is the people of Kosovo, who somehow manage to survive the deep economic crisis that is a direct consequence of the political one.
also These are the ones who are
* * *
The start of the work of this government is, in fact, the new beginning of the implementation of a spirit and idea that was presented as beautiful and hopeful in 2020, when the VV-LDK coalition government was voted. It turned out to be an illusion and in the end a big disappointment for the Kosovars tired of two decades of bad governance. Dreams were dashed at the worst possible time, in the middle of the pandemic, and things only got worse.
So, now, in fact, the proclaimed spirit of change is starting again. And restart in different circumstances - there is no coalition between parties that did not trust each other. There is a party and a list that speak the same language in terms of the goals they want to achieve. I don't know if there will be agreement as to the methods that will be chosen to implement these ideas. This will be an issue that will be closely followed along with the effects it will have.
Kurt's presentation before the parliamentarians was a declaration of goals that many things would be achieved which, if analyzed in more detail, will be difficult to achieve, even for a government mandate. What was missing, as every Government has been missing when it took power, was the governing program - detailed, which should foresee results and measuring indicators. It was promised that the program would be developed, but it was not said when it would be presented to the public. One thing is certain: the more delays in the introduction of this program, the worse for the measures that need to be taken to move things forward.
This was also written five years ago. In the recent period, there is absolutely no difference – a government was elected, without a government program. It was promised that it would be developed – almost five years in power were not enough for this.
Citing this also serves to prove that the "proclaimed spirit of change" was nothing more than a vision and that there was no agreement regarding the methods chosen to implement the ideas, which largely remained on paper (with very few exceptions).
It all came down to the personal ambitions of both leaders: one to retain the executive branch even based on legal interpretations by an economist, and the other to retain the position of president at all costs, including potentially violating the Constitution by assuming discretionary rights not provided for by the highest legal act.
In the last five years, there haven't been many positive changes - at least that's how people who walk the earth see it and don't flatter themselves that "everything is going well." Moreover, the last year has been one of the most difficult for citizens themselves: those who had decision-making power had no way of feeling the crisis, because they relied on the budget, which they themselves determined how it should be spent, while others worked to fill their coffers.
* * *
The level of political irresponsibility and the focus of all attention on power automatically distracts attention from all the other things that are happening around. They distract from the state systems that should take care of the development of society and keep it healthy. That should prevent the creation of gaps that are easily filled by others, and that have nothing to do with the state.
There is nothing worse than living in an illusion, because waking up and returning to reality can be very shocking and have serious effects that take a long time to heal, if they ever heal at all.
also staleWe don't need new elections, because they won't bring any substantial change - the number of representatives in the Assembly may change, but the essence of the problem will not change, which is the politicians who are currently running the political circus in Kosovo. They, as we have said many times, don't see beyond their own noses.