Armand Shkullaku, editor-in-chief of ABC News Albania and president of the Association of the Professional Journalists of Albania, in a front-page editorial of Gzeta Express, writes that after a desperate attempt to restore Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) as the major political force in the country, Isa Mustafa ended up to where he had driven to [about four years ago] Fatmir Sejdiu, in Hashim Thaci’s lap.

Shkullaku writes that without any particular trait leadership, Mustafa climbed rapidly in Kosovo politics thanks to a strong principled stance to end the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) and LDK coalition then. According to him, Mustafa knew how to exploit the frustration of the LDK fans, with the moto: ‘Never a coalition with PDK’, and this way, he defeated his former boss, Fatmir Sejdiu.  Thanks to this, Mustafa won the sympathy of the media and was seen as an opportunity to make a qualitative change in Kosovo politics.

Further, the author writes that he does not see the new agreement of Mustafa with Hashim Thaci, either as a betrayal of voters nor as infidelity from Mustafa. It is simply accepting de jure, what was happening de facto. According to Shkullaku, Isa Mustafa failed to become the leader of the missing change. “Failed to reform the LDK, lost Pristina and could not beat Hashim Thaci in elections. And he accepted the capitulation of his mission, doing what he had done to his predecessor. Here ends the story of a leader and starts a everyday story for a politician,” writes Shkullaku.

Shkullaku thinks that for Isa Mustafa, it has not been easy to arrive at this point. Maybe he has been in stalemate between the desire to become a leader and the willingness to become prime minister.

Shkullaku writes that “Thaci won the elections, never said never and he was willing to talk with everyone, being sure that one day someone will knock on his door”. From Shkullaku’s point of view, this should be a lesson for Mustafa, already being made prime minister by a man with whom he refused to sit at the negotiating table. “Mustafa closed the ‘old mission’, [that of the leader who will separate the LDK from the PDK], with the PDK’s ‘new mission’.”

Source: Tribuna Newspaper