Kusari-Lila warns of complicated negotiations, experts say the opposition could block the formation of the new government

Acting Trade Minister Mimoza Kusari-Lila has stated that official communication between the Vetëvendosje Movement and other political entities on building new institutions is expected to begin only after the election results are certified. According to her, so far only general positions have been heard, while official decisions from the parties are needed to move the process forward.

She assessed that the political circumstances this time are more complicated than in previous elections, because different positions exist within several parties regarding coalitions and political agreements. According to Kusari-Lila, these discrepancies could make it more difficult to reach an agreement and, consequently, to constitute the institutions.

Kusari-Lila also stressed that requests for support from the parties should be examined within the framework of the governing program. She also criticized the politicization of strategic projects, such as the American gas project, underlining that such issues should be handled in the interest of the country and not used for political clashes.

On the division of posts, she said it is still too early to talk about specific names, since this topic will be opened during negotiations between the parties. According to her, political entities must come forward with clear positions and secure the support of their deputies in order to make the creation of new institutions possible.

In this situation, the question arises whether internal divisions within political parties will affect the possibility of inter-party agreements, the formation of institutions, and the election of the president.

Burjani: In the absence of an agreement, the country should go to snap elections

Jurist Blerim Burjani spoke to “Bota sot” on this issue.

He believes that VV should clearly specify which parties it is prepared to cooperate with in order to create the government, because if it rules out every coalition option, the country may once again end up in snap elections.

“First, VV must be honest and clearly declare whether it is ready for all variants of political coalitions, whether inclusive ones, only with the LDK, or with the LDK and the AAK. With the PDK, according to statements so far, it does not want any kind of cooperation.

If it does not want to form a coalition with any of these parties in any form, then there is no other solution except new snap elections,” he said.

Burjani further stresses that VV’s idea of a consensual president is not inspiring confidence in the opposition, which in his view significantly reduces the chances of a political agreement.

“Now VV is saying there should be a consensual president, but the opposition does not believe that he would truly be independent, because it is thought that later he would become politically dependent on VV.

Therefore, the chances of reaching a normal political agreement are very small,” jurist Burjani told “Bota sot.”

Qarri: PDK is showing no willingness to cooperate with VV, while expectations from the Special Court have not changed positions

On the other hand, political analyst Gani Qarri, in a statement to “Bota sot,” says that divisions and internal problems in the opposition parties, especially in the LDK, make it difficult to reach a common position on a coalition with VV and on creating institutions, while even any eventual agreement would be fragile.

“The fact that within the opposition parties, after the June 7 elections, more than one position is emerging on possible political agreements or a coalition with VV, as well as the internal problems in the two main opposition parties, the PDK and especially the LDK, where by now 4 of the most important branches, due to the poor election result and repeated failures in parliamentary elections, have publicly demanded Abdixhiku’s resignation from the leadership of the LDK, speaks volumes about the difficulties and the lack of trust, especially in the LDK, that it can be unified in its position to enter a coalition with the winning party, vote for the president of the state, and create the country’s institutions.

It was no coincidence or unexpected act that the LDK branch in Peja, the one in Lipjan, the Second Branch of the LDK in Prishtina, and the LDK branch in Rahovec, after detailed analyses at the local and central levels of the poor results and repeated failures, including the national vote of June 7 where the LDK despite uniting with former president Vjosa Osmani gained almost nothing, warned that unless general elections are urgently declared and the leadership of the Democratic League of Kosovo is changed immediately, there is a risk of the party’s political marginalization as well. Therefore, in addition to the demand for internal party elections, the irrevocable resignation of Lumir Abdixhiku is also being sought, which makes VV’s cooperation with this party even more problematic, because the collapse of the coalition is almost entirely certain; the only question is the timing of its breakup,” the analyst stressed.

He further adds that, although the opening of talks on creating institutions is expected, the conditions and divisions within the LDK and the PDK are making the political situation even heavier and reducing the chances of an agreement with VV.

“So despite the statement by Acting Trade Minister Mimoza Kusari-Lila that after the certification of the June 7 election results, official communication is expected to begin between the Vetëvendosje Movement and other political parties regarding the creation of the new institutions of the Republic of Kosovo, the current situation within the LDK, the party with which this time too the prime minister and VV preferred to create the governing coalition, means that nothing is certain.

There are disagreements in the PDK as well, and the obstacle there is no longer only the lack of willingness to cooperate as last year, but there is also opposition, openly expressed by gangster Sami Lushtaku, or the de facto chairman of the PDK, against a coalition with VV. Therefore, as Ms. Kusari-Lila also says, the political situation after the June 7 elections in Kosovo is almost even more complicated than in previous processes, while within the opposition parties nearly insurmountable problems are emerging and, to camouflage the inability to make unified decisions on cooperation with the ruling side, they are expressing several positions and setting conditions that are difficult to accept for possible political agreements with the winning party,” the analyst explained.

According to Qarri, the LDK’s loss in the June 7 elections even in areas where it has traditionally governed has deepened the internal crisis and revived calls for Lumir Abdixhiku’s resignation. He says this state of division in the opposition is directly affecting the difficulty of reaching agreements with VV and is also endangering the creation of institutions, as well as the election of the president in the Assembly.

“The fact that in the June 7 elections the LDK, even in municipalities it had governed on its own for years, failed to come first and even fell to third place, has once again reopened an even harsher internal debate on the responsibility of the party leadership and the resignation of its current chairman, because despite the pre-election coalition with Vjosa Osmani, the Democratic League of Kosovo in these elections also failed to rank higher than the third party with only 16.69% of the vote. This caused the repetition of public demands for Abdixhiku’s irrevocable resignation, outside staged assemblies and as far as possible from conspiratorial rigged agreements with his loyalists such as Kujtim Shala, Lutfi Haziri, the parachutist Doarsa Kica, etc., who, with the departure of the current chairman, also risk losing their leadership positions, because only with Abdixhiku at the head of the party did they have guaranteed places in the LDK leadership.

Unfortunately, the current problems within the opposition parties are not confined only to their political segments, but the bad part of all this is that the pronounced divisions within the opposition parties are directly reflected in relation to the possibility of inter-party agreements and the formation of state institutions with the winning party, which also call into question the possibility of creating a quorum in the Assembly for the election of the country’s president,” Qarri said.

In the end, he assesses that there is no willingness within the PDK to cooperate with VV, while expectations linked to the Special Court have now lost their influence. Meanwhile, according to him, the crisis and divisions in the LDK are increasing uncertainty over coalitions and political stability in the country.

“As for the PDK, in addition to the lack of willingness to cooperate with the winning party, idealists within it speculated that the Special Court in The Hague could, on July 20, bring an acquittal for the accused or one of them, and they publicly expressed claims about taking the country once again to early elections, hoping they would win more votes.

However, since the Specialized Chambers in The Hague postponed the court decision until September 16, let us hope for a softening of positions and a change also in the PDK’s conditions, while with the LDK the big question currently remains as to what can really happen in the coming weeks and months with this political entity, while at the last LDK meeting even the LDK branch in Prizren did not take part, which signals a deepening of the crisis and the spread of dissatisfaction to other branches throughout the country, a development which, although it dims the chances, does not entirely extinguish hopes for a possible coalition with VV, because of the LDK leadership’s fear of going once again to a citizens’ ‘plebiscite’ and the LDK suffering an even deeper defeat in new early elections,” Qarri concluded for “Bota sot.”