• COVID-19: 658 new cases, nine deaths (media)
• Kurti: My position hasn’t changed; we can’t change the Constitution (media)
• Petkovic reacts to Kurti: Idea for unification could have consequences (media)
• Lajcak expects a Kurti-Vucic meeting before summer (media)
• ECAP receives 15 complaints over election results (media)
• Kusari-Lila: LDK voted Thaci, it should also vote Osmani (RTK/Telegrafi)
• AAK has not yet decided whether to vote for Osmani as president (Klan)
• Hodzic: Vote for Kurti government if two Bosniak municipalities formed (media)
• Mustafa: No preferences for LDK leader and no official candidacies (Kallxo)
• UNDP publishes latest public pulse report (media)
• Kosovo’s Courts Struggle to Hold Corrupt Officials to Account (Balkan Insight)
• Suicide prevention helpline seeking funding (Prishtina Insight)

COVID-19: 658 new cases, nine deaths (media)

Kosovo has recorded 658 new cases of COVID-19 and nine deaths in the last 24 hours. 426 persons have recovered from the virus during this time.

There are 9,479 active cases of COVID-19 in Kosovo.

Yesterday, Kosovo’s outgoing Minister of Health, Armend Zemaj, warned that there could be new and stricter measures against the COVID-19 pandemic if the current increase trend continues. He also said that anti-COVID vaccines from COVAX are expected to arrive this month and added that despite pressure Kosovo will not take vaccines from Serbia and Russia.

At the same time, Valbon Krasniqi, director of the University Clinical Hospital Service of Kosovo (SHSKUK) said the situation with the COVID-19 pandemic is worsening in Kosovo and did not rule out the possibility of an imminent new wave of infections.

Kurti: My position hasn’t changed; we can’t change the Constitution (media)

Vetevendosje Movement (VV) leader Albin Kurti said in a statement for Kosovo Online on Thursday that he cannot make the dialogue with Serbia the top priority of the new government in Kosovo and that as long as the Serbian List has 10 seats in the Assembly, Kosovo will not be able to change its Constitution for a possible unification with Albania.

Asked if his position on dialogue with Serbia changed after meeting EU Special Representative Miroslav Lajcak, Kurti said: “The importance of the dialogue with Serbia, according to the public opinion, is ranked in sixth or seventh place.  I said I was making a compromise by bringing it to fourth place, but I cannot make it a top priority, because the people don’t like it, and my position hasn’t changed even after meeting Lajcak. The first two priorities are employment and justice. The pandemic is a priority. And then could be the dialogue with Serbia, which otherwise needs to be well-prepared and principled. In the process of dialogue so far, Kosovo was more a topic than a stakeholder. In our government, in the dialogue with Serbia, Kosovo is becoming a stakeholder.”

Kurti he said the won the people’s trust also because he assumed the obligation of working on a law for referendums. “In Kosovo, there is no law on referendums. One of the obligations we have assumed in the election campaign is to work on a law for referendums. But the law on referendums does not suffice. Unfortunately, when the Constitution of Kosovo was adopted in June 2008, Article 1.3 notes that we cannot join another country. We are going to have to change it one day, but this cannot be done quickly or easily, because we need 2/3 of votes from minorities in the Assembly. The Serbian List controls 10 seats in the Kosovo Assembly and this means that we cannot change the Constitution. We want to change the Constitution one day, but we need to respect what is valid,” he said.

Kurti also said that they don’t want referendum or unification to someone’s detriment or through conflicts. “We don’t want unification, referendum or to change the Constitution to someone else’s detriment, but for our interests in peaceful and democratic fashion, not through conflicts,” he added.

Petkovic reacts to Kurti: Idea for unification could have consequences (media)

Petar Petkovic, head of the Serbian government’s Office for Kosovo, said on Thursday that eventual support for Kosovo’s unification with Albania could have ramifications throughout the Western Balkans. “Kosovo as an integral part of the territory of Serbia cannot join any other country and any unilateral effort to do so could have unpredictable consequences and would destroy every chance for relations between Serbs and Albanians to be developed toward friendship and cooperation,” he said.

Lajcak expects a Kurti-Vucic meeting before summer (media)

The EU Special Representative for Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak, said in Belgrade that there is readiness for dialogue from the parties and an understanding that it has no alternative.

Lajcak said he expects the President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic and the leader of the Vetevendosje Movement Albin Kurti to meet before the summer. “The main conclusion of my conversations in Pristina and Belgrade is there is a will for dialogue, there is an absolute understanding that there is no alternative to dialogue and that it is absolutely crucial for normalisation of relations and the European path but also for a normal atmosphere between Kosovo and Serbia,” Lajcak told the regional broadcaster N1.

ECAP receives 15 complaints over election results (media)

The Election Complaints and Appeals Panel (ECAP) has received 15 complaints regarding the final election results announced yesterday by the Central Election Commission (CEC).

ECAP officials said the complaints mostly relate to allegations of irregularities during the counting process and mismatching of results between the candidate forms and the final tally. Political parties have 24 hours following the announcement of final results to lodge complaints.

The CEC Kosovo’s Central Election Commission (CEC) announced yesterday the final results of the February 14 parliamentary elections according to which the Vetevendosje Movement (VV) won 49.95 percent of votes and will have 58 MPs in the new Kosovo Assembly. The Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) won 16.90 percent of votes and will have 19 MPs. The Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) won 12.64% and 15 MPs. The Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) will have eight MPs, and the Serbian List will have 10 MPs in the new assembly.

Kusari-Lila: LDK voted Thaci, it should also vote Osmani (RTK/Telegrafi)

Mimoza Kusari-Lila, who won another term as MP from the Vetevendosje Movement list, commended the higher women representation in the new parliament but stressed that there is a great deal of work to be done to increase the figure from the current 36.67 to 50 percent.

Kusari-Lila said the citizens have overwhelmingly voted for Vjosa Osmani as the new president of Kosovo and that this issue will not be part of political negotiations. She also said that the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) MPs ought to vote in support of Osmani as it would make no sense if they did not when they did vote for Hashim Thaci in 2016.

AAK has not yet decided whether to vote for Osmani as president (Klan)

The Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) MP Time Kadriaj said the party is yet to adopt a position on whether to vote for an Albin Kurti-led government and Vjosa Osmani as the new president of Kosovo.

She said the AAK leadership will take the decisions once the election results are certified. “All AAK’s decision on whether the MPs will remain in the room when the president is elected or the government voted depend on the position of the party’s chairmanship. There will be meetings and all issues will be tackled.”

Hodzic: Vote for Kurti government if two Bosniak municipalities formed (media)

Adrijana Hodzic from the United Community political parties has secured enough votes to become an MP in the new Kosovo Assembly. She faced accusations that she got the 5,183 votes as a result of deals with the Serbian List to get votes even in Serb majority municipalities. Hodzic however denied the claims and said she received votes thank to her earlier political activism and that votes she got from Serbs and other communities are democratic and in the service of a multiethnic state.

“In every municipality I won votes, I won them from all the communities. I work closely with the citizens and I had a very logical principle during my presentation. My engagement in Mitrovica is a fact that multiethnicity and coexistence exist precisely because of my contribution to local governance. I support all the communities, and this is why I was supported by all communities … I encourage all entities to use all legal mechanisms. For me, there was no violation of the law. I am going to be fully independent,” she said.

Hodzic said her vote in favor of a Vetevendosje-led government will be conditioned with the formation of two Bosniak majority municipalities. “We have nothing against Vetevendosje. It is the party that won the highest number of votes and this is the will of the people. My request is the formation of two Bosniak communities. I hope that Kurti will show that the Bosniak community is welcomed. The only way for Bosniaks to remain Bosniaks and not become assimilated is to have municipalities with a Bosniak majority,” she said.

Mustafa: No preferences for LDK leader and no official candidacies (Kallxo)

The resigned leader of the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) Isa Mustafa spoke to reporters after a meeting with party officials that focused on upcoming internal elections. He said there are no official candidacies for LDK leader’s post and that these are expected to be announced at the LDK convention set to take place later this month.

Mustafa said he has no preferences on who the new leader should be. “My preference is to have a leader that protects the LDK values and moves the LDK forward,” he said.

UNDP publishes latest public pulse report (media)

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) issued the 19th Public Pulse Brief based on an opinion poll involving 1,306 respondents conducted between 25 November and 8 December 2020.

The findings of the December 2020 Public Pulse poll record a significant decrease in people’s satisfaction with the work of the key executive and legislative institutions in Kosovo in comparison to April 2020.

Satisfaction with the work of the executive is recorded at 21.3% which is a decrease of 39.43 percentage points from the April 2020 poll when it stood at 60.7%. Moreover, satisfaction level with the work of the Prime Minister is recorded at 23% while that of the Kosovo Assembly Speaker has gone down to 46.7% from 72.4% recorded in April 2020. The Democratization Index (DI) has decreased by 0.21 points, from 1.53 in April 2020 to 1.32 in December 2020. The ECI has decreased from April 2020 (0.98) by 0.14 points to 0.84 points as measured in December 2020. Both DI and ECI are measured on a scale from 0 points (minimum) to 3 points (maximum).

See the report: https://bit.ly/3qhoBR1

Kosovo’s Courts Struggle to Hold Corrupt Officials to Account (Balkan Insight)

Kosovo has made progress in reducing a backlog of corruption cases, but very few corrupt officials end up behind bars.

Its rivals in Kosovo’s February election, Vetevendosje [Self-Determination] vowed to reinvigorate the fight against endemic corruption in Europe’s youngest state.

Winning in a landslide, Vetevendosje will have the chance to prove it was no empty promise.

But data viewed by BIRN and monitoring of court cases suggest the party has its work cut out.

While the high number of unresolved corruption cases before the Kosovo courts is gradually falling, experts question the claim this shows progress in the fight against graft.

“Fewer cases are being left for the following year, but the essence is in the manner in which the cases are resolved,” said Driton Demhasaj, director of the NGO ‘Cohu’, which has spent the past five years monitoring corruption cases in Kosovo.

See more at: https://bit.ly/2Ot4QZm

Suicide prevention helpline seeking funding (Prishtina Insight)

Linja e Jetes, Kosovo’s only suicide prevention hotline, is currently raising funds in order to extend its operating hours and train more volunteers in providing emotional support.

Over the last 20 years, more than 1,000 people have committed suicide in Kosovo, with an average of one person taking their own life every week. Around 70 percent of recorded cases in Kosovo involved men, with people aged between 19-30 the most likely commit suicide.

To help address this issue, in 2019 a team of 29 volunteers established the country’s first suicide prevention helpline, Linja e Jetes (Life Line) after receiving training from staff at 113, a Dutch suicide prevention organisation.

One of the founders of Linja e Jetes, Bind Skeja, tells Prishtina Insight that the helpline provides emotional support to people in a way that is “completely anonymous, completely confidential and completely free of charge.”

See more at: https://bit.ly/3bgOvjy