Milaim Shefkiu writes that the Minister of Public Administration, Mahir Jakxhillar has been the loudest among minority communities at the Assembly, on conditioning approval of the changes of the Constitution of Kosovo (which would open the way to the transformation of the Kosovo Security Force into Kosovo’s Armed Forces) with the approval of the reserved seats for minority communities for an additional mandate.
Mahir’s calculation might appear simple at first, and one might say that a deputy more or less does not count, because they are under Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi’s influence. However, when a deputy joins a parliamentary group, he is converted into a political power, and this power is converted into “money,” says Shefkiu.
When constitutional issues are concerned, Albanian deputies are handcuffed by the minorities, they cannot make any changes without them. In this case, Mahir, Slobodan and Nenad are as powerful as PM Thaçi, because no constitutional changes can be done without their “permission”, and this is valid also for the creation of the army of Kosovo.
Shefkiu says that this should be a lesson on where Kosovo’s Constitution stumbles, and what are the required changes for the future. He considers that two thirds of the Parliament majority and two thirds of the minorities is required for constitutional changes, which is too high.
Ninety percent of the population has a greater judicial, moral and political responsibility than 10 percent of it. Kosovo has anyways guaranteed that minorities would have equal rights with majority population. Therefore it is not democratic, when major state issues, such as creation of the army are concerned, to be conditioned with the seats at the Parliament. If this condition does not exist anywhere else in Europe, then this is a Kosovar paradox, says Shefkiu.
