Kosovo’s Assembly has opened the procedure for selecting two members of the Board of the Energy Regulatory Office (ERO), a process that has been accompanied by criticism from opposition parties over the way the Government selected the candidates.
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Vetëvendosje Movement MP Taulant Kelmendi announced that two of the four proposed candidates would be elected through a secret ballot. The new members will serve five-year terms.
Kelmendi said that the LVV Parliamentary Group supports the election of the new members, describing the operationalization of the ERO as important.
He said that the candidates proposed by the Government are Driton Gojani, Lutfie Dervishi, Hana Jakupi and Senat Bolluzerti, while reiterating that two of them would be selected through a secret ballot for a five-year term.
PDK MP Arben Mustafa responded to the process, questioning the criteria used to select the four names.
Mustafa said MPs had received the list of recommended candidates, but not a clear explanation of why these particular names had been proposed. According to him, the evaluation documents show that the candidates selected by the Government were not those who received the highest scores, but people who ranked near the bottom of the list.
The PDK MP described the process as improvised and politicized, claiming that it was not aimed at selecting the best candidates for the ERO Board, but at sending people favored by the Government to the Assembly. He also asked what the purpose of the candidate evaluation and interview process had been.
LDK MP Ermal Sadiku also voiced criticism. He said the evaluation committee had ranked the 13 candidates based on their scores, professional experience and education, but that the Government had not included the highest-rated candidates in its proposal.
Sadiku stressed that the person ranked first, as well as the candidates ranked third and fourth, had not been selected to appear before the Assembly. According to him, the proposed list included the candidates ranked second, seventh, eighth and sixth.
He called on MPs not to vote for people who, according to the independent committee’s assessment, had not deserved to be included on the list submitted to the Assembly.
AAK MP Burim Ramadani also requested clarification about the procedure. He said the materials presented to the committee contained no justification for disregarding the ranking established by the recommending committee.
Minister of Economy Artane Rizvanolli defended the process followed by the Government. She said the call for applications had been transparent and that the candidates had been reviewed by a committee composed of experts in the field.
Rizvanolli rejected claims that the proposed names did not meet the criteria. She said the differences between the candidates were not as large as claimed, citing a difference of 10 points and another gap that, according to her, was around 70 to 80 percent.
The minister added that the panel of experts had carried out the assessment and submitted to the Government a list of candidates it considered appointable, while calling for inaccurate information about the candidates’ criteria not to be circulated.
LDK MP Armend Zemaj responded to the minister’s statement. He said Rizvanolli had acknowledged that the candidates had been assessed by experts in the field, but that the Government had not respected the ranking they had established.
Zemaj added that disregarding the assessment of two eminent experts showed that the selection had been made on the basis of the Government’s perception rather than according to the committee’s professional ranking.
Rizvanolli responded by saying that the final selection decision was at the Government’s discretion. She said the evaluation results had been acknowledged, but that the Government had the right to decide which names to submit for a vote.
The minister said that those who wanted to make a different selection should win the votes and come into government.
With 66 votes in favor, none against and no abstentions, Kosovo’s Assembly approved the Electoral Commission for selecting members of the Board of the Energy Regulatory Office.
