Gogic: Osmani will likely strategize in the campaign if she wants a new mandate

Political scientist Ognjen Gogic tells Kosovo Online that it is a significant question how Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani will position herself in the pre-election campaign, but it should not be expected that she will launch any action against Albin Kurti or call on her voters to vote against him. If she wants a new presidential mandate, it is wisest for her to wait and see the election results.

He assesses that Osmani is currently acting as a president who should be neutral and above daily politics, not aligning herself with any party. However, if there are further crises, she may have to align herself more or less openly against Kurti.

"But it shouldn't be expected that she will launch a campaign against him because she has no interest in getting involved in this election campaign. Her term as president expires in 2026, and it appears that the new parliament, which will be elected in 2025, will elect the next president. If Osmani wants to be re-elected as president, and she does, as things stand now, it is wisest for her to wait and see how the cards will be dealt, which party will have how many seats, and then form a new coalition that would support her re-election," Gogic says.
He points out that it is highly likely that without the Self-Determination Movement, the new president of Kosovo will not be able to be elected, and that Osmani will need the support of the Self-Determination Movement to remain in the presidential position if she desires so.

"Therefore, she will likely strategize in this campaign and remain in partnership with Kurti because she is aware that, in the end, her future as president of Kosovo will depend on his political support," Gogic says.

Osmani won slightly more than 300,000 votes in the 2021 parliamentary elections as a candidate for deputy on the Self-Determination Movement list, but our interlocutor says that this happened after the court ordered Kurti’s name to be removed from the election list during the campaign due to a criminal conviction, which the court believed disqualified him from being a candidate.

"This led to voter outrage and sympathy for the Self-Determination Movement, and since Kurti was not on the list, Osmani was first in line and benefited from that. If Kurti's name had been on the list at that time, she would not have received so many votes. So, the votes she received were not necessarily hers, it would be more accurate to say that it was support enjoyed by Albin Kurti. She gathered around her a number of members, sympathizers, and supporters of the LDK into the Guxo party, but in the meantime, Kurti somehow brought the Guxo party under his control by distancing its members from Vjosa Osmani and aligning them with him. In the Kurti-Osmani duo, Kurti is the one who holds more influence and enjoys greater support, and if there were a split between the two, Osmani would be the one to lose. She wouldn't significantly undermine Kurti," Gogic believes.

Although there is often speculation about their conflict now, Gogic says that they have some disagreements but that there is still a partnership between them and that they have not become political enemies.

When asked about the political influence Osmani has and whether voters would heed her potential call to support a particular party, Gogic says that, generally, voters anywhere do not like it when a party makes a major shift.

"The same is true for LDK voters, who were perhaps always the most democratically inclined in Kosovo. They would not appreciate such Copernican shifts made at the last moment. When Osmani left the LDK, some voters who were more inclined toward her position followed her, but it is unlikely that they would all return now if she made a turnaround and that they would follow her in that. She would more likely marginalize herself and lose credibility. When Osmani distances herself from Kurti, she does so not because of voters in Kosovo but because of the international community, to present herself as more moderate and cooperative in the eyes of diplomats. However, she does this in a way that does not jeopardize her cooperation with Kurti but rather to maintain her reputation with foreign observers," Gogic concludes.