Kosovo’s Deadlock Broken, But Democracy Still at Risk

Kosovo’s parliament broke months of deadlock electing Dimal Basha as speaker, but opposition sabotage aligned with Belgrade threatens sovereignty, justice, and the republic’s fragile democratic future

PRISHTINA — After months of paralysis, Kosovo’s parliament has finally elected a speaker. Dimal Basha, a firebrand deputy of the ruling Vetëvendosje movement, secured 73 votes, breaking a deadlock that had left the country without a functioning legislature since February¹.

On the surface, this should mark the end of Kosovo’s most corrosive institutional crisis in years. For nearly seven months, the Assembly failed 57 times to elect a Speaker, paralysing government formation and locking more than €700 million in international funds. Yet while the vote for Basha unblocked the machinery of state, it did not resolve the deeper fault lines threatening Kosovo’s democratic future.

Because beneath the noise of partisan feuding lies a darker reality: Kosovo’s opposition parties, particularly the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), and the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK), have aligned themselves, in rhetoric and strategy, with Belgrade’s Serbian List. And in doing so, they are not merely opposing Vetëvendosje; they are undermining the very sovereignty of the state they claim to represent.

Opposition as a Threat to Democratic Sovereignty

The election of Basha only came after elements of PDK and AAK broke ranks to support him. This was not compromise in the service of the republic. It was an act of tactical desperation, a way of avoiding snap elections that none of the established parties wanted. For months, PDK and its allies had abstained or voted against every Vetëvendosje candidate, prolonging the vacuum. Their abstentions were framed as institutional scruples. In reality, they functioned as sabotage.

This obstructionism mirrors the language and tactics of Serbian List, Belgrade’s proxy in Kosovo politics. The opposition couches its behaviour in talk of procedure, pluralism, and checks on power. But the effect, intentional or not, is the same as Belgrade’s strategy: paralysing Kosovo’s institutions, sowing cynicism among citizens, and projecting to the world that Kosovo is ungovernable.

The danger is not theoretical. Kosovo’s fragile constitutional order was never designed to withstand months of coordinated sabotage. Every abstention, every boycott, every procedural veto corrodes the legitimacy of the system itself, the very thing Belgrade has spent two decades trying to achieve.

Belgrade’s Aggressive Posture

Serbia under Aleksandar Vucic has become more aggressive, not less, in its posture toward Kosovo. His regime remains aligned with Moscow, purchases weapons from China, Iran, and Israel, and shelters war criminals like Milan Radoičić, who openly admitted to leading a 2023 terrorist attack in Banja that killed a Kosovo police officer².

The pattern is consistent: escalate, deny, deflect. When Kosovo acts to dismantle parallel Serbian structures or prosecute violence, the West urges “restraint” — pressure falling, almost inevitably, on Prishtina rather than Belgrade.

Vučić has mastered the art of strategic ambiguity: close enough to Moscow to be indispensable, close enough to Brussels to remain a “partner.” Kosovo, meanwhile, is cast as the intransigent party whenever it insists on sovereignty. This imbalance is worsened when Kosovo’s own opposition parties echo Belgrade’s playbook inside its institutions.

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Northern Kosovo: A Region in Transition

In Mitrovica and the broader Serb-majority north, recent months have brought a fragile return to normality. The dismantling of Belgrade-backed parallel structures³, coupled with firm policing, has reduced the space for armed militias to operate. Checkpoints once manned by masked gunmen have been replaced by Kosovo police. Businesses and schools are reopening.

Yet this is not stability, it is reprieve. The networks that once supplied arms and money to Serb militias have not vanished; they have retreated, waiting for the next political vacuum. For Belgrade, the north remains a pressure valve: a tool to manufacture crisis whenever Kosovo asserts sovereignty too strongly or too successfully.

The Hague Question: Justice Undermined

The opposition’s threat does not stop at institutional sabotage. It extends to the course of justice itself. PDK, in particular, has waged an aggressive campaign against Kosovo’s Specialist Chambers in The Hague⁴, where former leaders, including Hashim Thaçi, face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

PDK’s leading figure, Artan Behrami, has spearheaded a campaign to delegitimise the court, portraying prosecutions as an attack on Kosovo’s liberation struggle. Behind this rhetoric lies a more cynical reality: the defence of a political and financial empire built over two decades of plunder. According to sources close to the investigation, media outlets linked to PDK oligarchs wealth believed to be siphoned from the public purse under Thaçi’s rule have coordinated messaging designed to undermine the chambers’ legitimacy.

The implications are profound. If justice for wartime crimes is derailed, Kosovo not only loses credibility abroad, it risks reopening old wounds at home. A state that cannot hold its elites accountable is one that cannot mature democratically. By shielding their leaders from justice, PDK and its allies are not defending Kosovo’s sovereignty; they are mortgaging it to their own impunity.

Opposition Media: The Oligarchic Machine

Kosovo’s media landscape, already fragile, has been further distorted by the concentration of outlets in the hands of political and business interests linked to PDK’s old guard. These entities shape narratives not to inform, but to insulate. Their editorial lines oscillate between attacking Vetëvendosje’s attempts at reform and sanitising the reputations of those indicted at The Hague.

This is not journalism. It is propaganda laundering, a continuation of the same oligarchic control that hollowed Kosovo’s institutions for twenty years. The alignment between political sabotage in parliament and narrative sabotage in the media is not accidental. It is systemic.

A Fragile Republic Under Siege

Kosovo stands at a crossroads. On one side is a leadership under Kurti and Osmani that, however imperfect, has sought to dismantle Belgrade’s proxies, enforce sovereignty, and confront corruption. On the other side is an opposition that, in aligning with Serbian List and shielding its indicted elites, has become a direct threat to democracy itself.

The risks are immense. If opposition sabotage continues, Kosovo’s institutions could once again collapse into paralysis. If justice at The Hague is delegitimised, Kosovo could lose its moral standing internationally. If Belgrade finds opportunity in these fractures, the north could again ignite into violence.

And the international dimension only magnifies the peril. The United States, the European Union, and Britain continue to treat Serbia as a partner while scolding Kosovo for insisting on sovereignty. In doing so, they legitimise Belgrade’s tactics and embolden Kosovo’s internal saboteurs.

The Brutal Truth

Kosovo’s greatest threat is not external invasion. It is internal corrosion: the refusal of its political class, especially the opposition, to choose democracy over expedience, sovereignty over complicity, justice over impunity.

For years, PDK, LDK, and AAK governed through a system of patronage, corruption, and quiet collusion with Belgrade’s proxies. Their current obstructionism is not an aberration; it is the continuation of that legacy. Their abstentions in parliament, their campaigns against The Hague, their capture of media, all point to a political elite unwilling to imagine a Kosovo that is sovereign, just, and democratic.

Belgrade will exploit this weakness. The Kremlin will amplify it. And unless Kosovo’s institutions, supported by its international allies, confront it head-on, the republic risks not only paralysis but reversal, a slide back into the shadows of dependency and instability.

Kosovo’s story is one of hard-won independence, born of resistance and sacrifice. But independence is not an endpoint; it is a test renewed daily in institutions, in courts, in parliaments.

Today, that test is being failed not by the people of Kosovo, who demand justice and governance, but by their leaders, particularly those in opposition, who choose sabotage over service, impunity over accountability.

In Mitrovica’s fragile calm, in the halls of The Hague, in the bitter arithmetic of Kosovo’s parliament, the stakes could not be clearer.

The republic is under siege. And the question may not be whether Belgrade can destroy Kosovo’s democracy. The question is whether Kosovo’s own opposition will do it first.

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1. Dimal Basha zgjidhet kryeparlamentar — KOHA.

2. One Year After Banjska: The West’s Role in Serbia’s Balkan Escalation

One year after the Banjska attacks, Serbia's aggression and Western appeasement continue to destabilise Kosovo, raising questions about regional security and international accountability. — The GPC Balkan Watch.

3. Serbia's Parallel Structures Fall in Kosovo

Kosovo ends Serbia's shadow governance, enforcing its sovereignty. The world hesitates, will principles of statehood prevail, or does appeasing Belgrade continue to trump international law? — The GPC Balkan Watch.

4. The Conspiracy Against Kosovo's Justice System Unraveled

In response to manipulated attacks, we're granting free access to our latest investigative report, ensuring every reader sees the unfiltered truth. — The GPC I Unit.