The LDK should use Vjosa Osmani — not the other way around

The Democratic League of Kosovo has agreed to bring Vjosa Osmani back onto its list, presenting her return as a chance to grow in the next election. But the enthusiasm around her comeback is not entirely natural. It is driven by frustration over the collapse of the largest party in Kosovo’s political history, which fell to 15 percent in the last election.

That is why many inside the LDK are accepting her return through clenched teeth. They hope that reuniting the party will restore its political strength.

But if this return is to mean anything for the LDK, it must serve the party — not Vjosa Osmani.

The LDK has every right to use Osmani’s return to strengthen itself and recover some of the damage she caused by dividing the party and putting part of its electorate at Vetëvendosje’s service in at least the last three parliamentary elections.

But Osmani has no right to use the LDK as a protective bunker after the humiliation Albin Kurti inflicted on her. The way she is returning — without an apology and without any reflection on what happened to the LDK — is unlikely to heal the wound she opened inside the party.

The staging of her return makes it look as if a savior is coming home after being held hostage in the Sultan’s court.

That is not what happened.

This is the return of a prodigal child who set fire to her own house for personal interest. She has not come back because she saw the LDK was in trouble. She has come back because she saw that she herself had been left politically homeless.

That is why her return must be handled as a political project, not as her personal emergency.

For the LDK to manage this properly, it must first unite its own factions, including those created by Lumir Abdixhiku himself out of fear that he might be removed after the party’s catastrophic election result. Inside the LDK, there are many silent groups that oppose his leadership and have been pushed by him out of internal party races or parliamentary competition.

The LDK must first make peace with those who never abandoned it.

Only then can Osmani’s return be welcomed as part of a broader political project: a deep opening of the LDK and a restart based on new rules.

As things stand, however, this looks like a private deal between Abdixhiku and Osmani. I am not sure such a deal can bring peace inside the LDK.

After all, Abdixhiku helped make Osmani president the first time by giving her the LDK’s votes. But she did not repay the LDK during her presidency. On the contrary, she became one of the fiercest voices against the party and pulled many senior LDK figures into public battles with her.

Her return should have been a sign of a new beginning for the LDK, based on new rules and a wider opening of the party. Instead, it risks looking like an opaque agreement between two politicians.

In fact, the way Osmani is coming back makes her look like the LDK’s de facto leader. I am not against that. But if that is the reality, it should be formalized through an extraordinary party congress, so that after the election the LDK does not fall into another internal civil war.

If she is nominated for prime minister, she must also be the LDK’s de jure leader. She should be responsible for the election result — or credited for it.

I am sure the LDK will win more votes with Osmani’s return than it did last time. But more votes do not mean it can defeat Albin Kurti.

So far, the LDK, PDK and AAK have not offered a shared vision or a common plan for how to beat Kurti. Osmani’s return makes the LDK even more distant from its opposition allies. And after the election, it may once again make the party useful to Kurti — either through the LDK itself, or through Osmani’s people inside it, as happened in 2020.

That is why the LDK should formalize her as its de jure leader, because she is already behaving like its de facto leader.

That is the only way for the LDK to use Vjosa Osmani, rather than allowing Vjosa Osmani to use the LDK for her own ambitions. If the party broadly accepts her and makes her leadership official, it can at least avoid another post-election split, where everyone takes their share of the dowry and leaves their own house again for someone else’s.

Otherwise, this return home will become a major misuse of the LDK: a way of turning the party into Vjosa Osmani’s pressure group against Albin Kurti.

And that would be the end of the LDK.

Originally published in Albanian as: LDK duhet të përdorë Vjosa Osmanin dhe jo ajo LDK-në