Nikolic: Kurti and his associates pretend disagreement about the CSM, buying time before elections

Political analyst Uros Nikolic stated for Kosovo Online that the differing views emerging from Self-Determination regarding the CSM pointed to a rift within the party. However, he does not exclude the possibility that Albin Kurti is acting out these disagreements to delay the CSM as much as possible due to the upcoming elections.

"The Self-Determination Movement has shown itself to be somewhat incoherent in recent months, not to mention years, with some discordant tones and fractures within the party. One of Kurti's closest associates, Haki Abazi, left the Self-Determination Movement and turned against Kurti, becoming one of his fiercest critics," Nikolic emphasized.

He adds that it is still possible that Kurti and his associates are feigning this game and acting out disagreements about the CSM to prolong the process.

"Kurti is playing these cunning games, and it's not excluded that this applies to the discordant views within Self-Determination and the different options regarding whether to go to the Constitutional Court or not. This could be a game where they play good cop bad cop within the movement to obstruct these processes, and let's not forget that Kosovo is nearing elections," Nikolic said.

According to him, Kurti has proven to be a resilient politician and a tough opponent of Serbia, and he seizes every opportunity to maneuver and gain maximum advantage for himself.

"When pressured by Western partners, he simply implemented the Constitutional Court's decision from 2016 and, after eight years, returned the land to the Visoki Decani monastery. Now, based on that, he may succeed in bargaining for Kosovo to gain membership in the Council of Europe. We forget that the CSM was signed 11 years ago, and none of what was supposed to benefit Serbia has been implemented," our interlocutor emphasized.

Regarding the CSM, after the decision on Decani, Nikolic emphasizes that this process has been going on for so long, so various traps can be expected.
"We had situations where certain German foundations offered to draft it, and then the Temporary Institutions in Pristina claimed they would create their own CSM draft, which is in complete opposition to what was originally signed in the Brussels agreement. All options are on the table. It's all a kind of game aimed at psychological pressure on Serbs living in constant uncertainty, never knowing what the new day will bring. Every new situation leads to a silent exodus. That is clearly Kurti's strategy," the political analyst believes.

Nikolic reminds us that Self-Determination has extremists with rigid views who do not budge on any issue, which can also lead to conflicts within the party.

"Against them, they put forward some people with slightly softened views who would accept less than what Serbia agreed to in the Brussels agreement regarding the CSM. In Kurti's maneuvering with Western partners, he uses this tactic of aggressively pursuing maximalist goals, then, if he can't achieve them, he backs down. By raising the bar and abandoning the maximalist goals that were unrealistic from the start, he manages to achieve what he wanted from the beginning, making it look like a compromise. I see everything happening in Self-Determination as a performance, and whether there will be real conflicts, we will see during the election period. If one of the significant functionaries who have been giving discordant tones does leave or actually exits the movement, that would mean a real conflict. But if they continue to send diametrically opposite messages internally while everyone remains in the party, that would mean it's staged. No one can convince me that someone like Albin Kurti, an Enverist, is a great democrat who allows a thousand flowers to bloom in his Self-Determination. Whatever he is like in Kosovo, he is the same in his party. There's no intra-party democracy there," Nikolic concluded.