OPEN LETTER/ Come to the dialogue and listen to me speak, otherwise I will cut off your scholarships, you will rot in prison. Please!

 Kliko këtu për të tjera
Voxpress:

"Abnormal clash": What is happening between Vjosa Osmani and Albin Kurti?

2025-04-05 20:16:24Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
"Abnormal clash": What is happening between Vjosa Osmani and Albin
Albin Kurti and Vjosa Osmani

Clashes on social media between representatives of the Presidency and the Government of Kosovo are a public manifestation of tensions and "abnormal" communication between these two institutions of the country, experts on political developments say.

The request of the President of Kosovo, Vjosa Osmani, to the Government of Kosovo on April 3, to suspend the 10 percent customs tariff on goods from the United States of America, became the cause of a clash with harsh communication tones on social networks, between Hekuran Murati, acting Minister of Finance, and Bekim Kupina, media advisor to the President.

Osman's request to the Government came a day after US President Donald Trump imposed similar tariffs on imports from Kosovo.

"It is clear that communication between the Presidency and the Government is not at the best possible level, as it was in their early days," Bekim Salihu from the Institute for Advanced Studies - GAP tells Radio Free Europe.

Sociologist and political analyst, Artan Muhaxhiri, considers that the online clash between the Presidency staff and a serving minister "shows the naivety of the institutional political culture" in Kosovo.

"It is evidence of a mediocre idea that major problems between the pillars of the state are resolved publicly and not through normal channels of direct communication between the president and the prime minister," Muhaxhiri emphasizes.

President Osmani made her request to the Government on April 3 on the social network X.

Acting Minister Murati responded to her request without delay, saying that the president published it on social media just three minutes after the request was sent to the official government address.

"Every serious country handles these issues away from the media, and the public is notified when a decision is made," Murati wrote on the social network Facebook on April 2, adding that the topic of a free trade agreement with the US has been discussed by the Government with American officials since 2023.

Murat's statement was responded to by the president's advisor, Kupina, who described the minister as "the last person in this country who can speak to us seriously."

In his reaction on Facebook, Kupina accused Murat of "not understanding that, according to the Constitution and the commentary to the Constitution, foreign policy objectives are determined by the institution of the Presidency."

Who is right?

Among the powers of the president of Kosovo are the country's foreign policy objectives, Salihu and Muhaxhiri assess.

They also agree that President Osmani's proposal to the Government to suspend the customs tariff on American goods does not exceed its competences, and that the publication of this proposal on social networks does not violate the protocol rules of this institution.

However, they have different opinions regarding the purpose and effect of this publication.

"I saw this kind of unnecessary clash, as an exaggeration from both sides. The fact that such a request has been published does not represent any violation, error or distortion. Nowhere is it said, neither in the protocol aspects, nor in the official ones, that requests of this nature should not be published," Salihu emphasizes.

Muhaxhiri shares the same position on this point. However, he emphasizes that the harsh tones used by representatives of the Presidency and the Government during public communication through social networks speak of another aspect of inter-institutional relations.

"The very fact that the Presidency and the Government have chosen this method of communication shows that the main goal was to inform Kosovar public opinion, to inform citizens, about the low level of relations between these two institutions and about any potential conflict that will arise as a result of entering the process of electing a new president," Muhaxhiri emphasizes.

President Osmani's five-year mandate will end in April next year.

Expected collisions

The joint journey of President Osmani and the Government of the acting Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, began about four years ago.

But the cooling of relations between them has been observed even last year.

In May 2024, the Presidency reacted by saying that the Government did not consult it at all about a letter it had sent to the Council of Europe, to inform it of its intentions to draft and send to the Constitutional Court a draft statute for the Association of Serb-majority Municipalities.

Kurti, in June of that same year, emphasized that he did not believe that there were insurmountable differences between him and other heads of state, including President Osmani.

However, recent clashes have brought the tensions between the two institutions back into the public eye, say experts on political developments.

Salihu underlines that the motives for disagreements between the Presidency and the Government may be different, starting from the dislike for the positions that one or the other institution has regarding certain topics or developments.

"Apparently, in public opinion, it is being seen that there is tension between the Presidency and the Government," says Salihu, adding that there have been signals of clashes before.

"In some cases there have been signals [from the Government] that they are not approving, or preferring the positions of the Presidency or the opposite. However, both sides have been and continue to be afraid that an open clash between them is their political loss, more than they could gain," says Salihu.

Muhaxhiri sees the latest clash on social media as "an overture to a very tedious and complicated process of electing the country's president" in April next year.

According to him, it remains to be seen whether President Osmani will run for a second term.

But, as he says, Osman's relations with Kurti, whose party, the Vetevendosje Movement, claims another governing mandate after winning the February 9 parliamentary elections, are no longer the same as they were in their early days.

He emphasizes that neither Kurti has the political power as in 2021, when he won with over 50 percent of the vote in the parliamentary elections held that year, nor President Osmani, who was the most voted person in those elections.

Osman's "Guxo" political entity and Kurti's Vetëvendosje Movement competed in the 2021 elections on a joint electoral list.

On a joint list, these two entities also competed in the February 9 elections, where they won 42 percent of the vote, but "Guxo" is no longer led by Osmani, who left when she took the position of president in 2021.

According to Muhaxhir, the February 9 elections did not produce a party that would form the parliamentary majority and the new Government alone, but requires coalitions that will make "political bargains," which also include the presidential election in April 2026.

This situation, he says, will increase tensions between the Presidency and the new Government, which Kurti claims to form soon.

"The coming period will be extremely conflictual. There is an extremely negative atmosphere in the Kosovo political spectrum. There is no will at all for cooperation or realistic compromises. So, we will have populism, we will have naive, aggressive language, which will only damage the institutional image, but also the credibility of citizens towards Kosovo's institutions," Muhaxhiri emphasizes.

However, both experts on political developments, Salihu and Muhaxhiri, have assessed Osman's request for the suspension of customs tariffs on American goods as reasonable.

Maintaining this tariff, which, according to them, does not significantly affect Kosovo's economy, "is absurd."

An eventual decision by the Government to suspend or completely abolish this tariff, as they assessed, would send positive signals from Kosovo towards the US, as a demonstration of the will for friendly cooperation between the two partner countries./ REL

 


Në përputhje me standarded JTI

Video

SHIKO KANALIN NE YOUTUBE
×