Justina Shiroka Pula: Kosovo’s new president, elected during a crisis

An academic, former minister and a compromise choice, Pula was voted in by parliament amid protests. Save Share Kosovo’s election of a new president has brought an end toheightened tensionsin parliament and possibly on the streets. On Tuesday, protests against the convictions of former Kosovo Liberation Army leaders coincided with a midnight deadline to elect a president. Ultimately, the ruling Vetevendosje Movement (LVV) and opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) reached an agreement on her candidacy, clearing the way for a parliamentary vote. Lawmakers elected Justina Shiroka Pula to the country’s top office in the first minutes of Wednesday, close to the constitutional deadline, averting new early parliamentary elections that could have pushed the country into a deeper crisis. The 81 votes she secured – one more than the two-thirds, 80-vote threshold required – were the result of a pragmatic compromise. The parties also agreed to adopt amendments changing the legal framework governing the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, the Hague-based court established to try former Kosovo Liberation Army leaders for alleged war crimes – an issue demonstrators had been urging politicians to address. After a prolonged period of political deadlock, none of Kosovo’s political parties appeared willing to take responsibility for triggering another election. “I see the election of Justina Shiroka Pula as a mix of political necessity and the need to stabilise institutions,” Donika Emini, a research fellow at the University of Graz’s Centre for Southeast European Studies, told Al Jazeera. Kosovo had already been in a prolonged political limbo, she said, with election fatigue and increasing public dissatisfaction with the political elite. After the Specialist Chambers verdict and 20 days of protests, including violent incidents in Pristina on the night before the presidential vote, “going into yet another election would have carried a high political cost for everyone,” Emini said. “I see this as more than a temporary fix, but I wouldn’t read it as proof that the underlying polarisation has been resolved. “It was, above all, a politically necessary compromise to restore institutional functioning.” Shiroka Pula’s election extends the run of women leading Kosovo. The 73-year-old is the country’s third female president, after Atifete Jahjaga and Vjosa Osmani....