American professor Edward P. Joseph has said that all political leaders in Kosovo bear responsibility for resolving the political deadlock, stressing that citizens should punish them if they fail to reach a consensus.
According to him, the main burden for getting out of this situation falls on acting Prime Minister Albin Kurti, because he controls the majority in the Assembly. However, Joseph underlined that the responsibility does not rest with him alone.
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“Absolutely. They must do this. And if they do not, I will say this: If the political leaders and again, I am speaking in the plural, I am not saying only that Prime Minister Kurti has responsibility. He has the main responsibility because he controls the majority of votes in parliament, and this is a parliamentary decision, but all of them bear responsibility. And the voters, I will say this, the voters should punish all political leaders who do not find a consensus, because this is harming the country,” Joseph said.
Commenting on the consequences of the current political climate, he drew a distinction between the issue of stability and that of democratic development. In his assessment, Kosovo remains a stable state, but this situation does not represent a good model for democracy.
“These are two different questions. Stability is one question, while democratic development these are two different things. I do not believe this affects stability, and I would not want to say that, because I believe Kosovo is a stable country and a stable democracy. The Republic of Kosovo is such, and I support it, and I support Kosovo’s entry into NATO, for which I have been one of the strongest supporters. As for democratic development, it is terrible. It is clear, the answer is clear. This is not a good example of democratic development. And we should emphasize here, this is not like a typical parliamentary deadlock, such as Belgium once had with a one-year deadlock, that kind of situation happens when you have a very narrow majority. But here you have a party that has a clear ability,” he said.
Joseph also touched on relations between Kosovo and the United States of America, describing the suspension of the strategic dialogue as a negative development. He also said that the Government of Kosovo has left an important opportunity unused in relation to the Serb community.
“Yes, there are differences. Certainly, it was very bad to see the United States suspend the strategic dialogue. And this reinforces the message I gave, which is the recognition of all citizens in Kosovo, of all communities, including the Serb community, and the way the government treats them. And the government has an extraordinary opportunity and has had an opportunity that it did not use to tell the Serb community of Kosovo: ‘Your capital is in Pristina. Pristina cares about you. Belgrade does not care about you.’ And they have lost this opportunity,” Joseph said.
The American professor also spoke about the proceedings taking place at the Specialist Chambers in The Hague. He said he does not possess any special information about the progress of the case, but expressed concern that there may be a conscious or unconscious drive to produce a guilty verdict against the accused.
“All right, certainly, I do not have any special information and no one should think that I do. I am like everyone else, simply observing. I would say that I am concerned. I will not make a prediction, but I am concerned that there may be, consciously or unconsciously, a motivation for this court to find some conviction against the defendants. Because how else can they justify this years-long and very expensive process, their high salaries, their staff, all of that support? So they have a large budget, and then you take former president Thaçi, remove him from office here and take him up there, and in the end you have nothing? There is no conviction? So I am concerned that this may be a conscious or unconscious motivation,” Joseph said./eo/
