PRISTINA, Kosovo — The coronavirus is threatening to bring down its first government.
While citizens elsewhere in Europe sing and cheer from their balconies in support of healthcare workers fighting COVID-19, people in Kosovo’s capital Pristina are banging pots and pans to protest at a government crisis triggered by the virus.
“We protested last night and will protest every day at the same time. We’re upset that we have been served this ticking time bomb at a time when the country and the world are facing an emergency,” said Orgesa Arifi, a 27-year-old copywriter.
Day 2, still going strong: in lockdow citizens protest political drama & government collapse in a middle of a pandemic. My neighborhood tonight: pic.twitter.com/oS2JchZkQ0
— Lura Limani (@LuraLim) March 20, 2020
Tension between the two parties in the ruling coalition, which only took office last month, boiled over this week when Prime Minister Albin Kurti fired Interior Minister Agim Veliu in a disagreement over whether a state of emergency should be declared to halt the spread of the pandemic. The row came after weeks of bickering between the two partners over U.S. pressure to lift import tariffs on goods from Kosovo’s northern neighbor, Serbia.
Veliu, from the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) party, spoke out in favor of a state of emergency. But Kurti, of the Self-Determination Movement, said that would be a disproportionate response to tackling the coronavirus in the small Balkan state, which has recorded 22 cases of COVID-19.
In response to the minister’s dismissal, the LDK petitioned parliament to launch a no-confidence motion in the government — even as the party remains a partner in the administration.
Kurti’s allies accused the LDK of trying to exploit the coronavirus crisis to bring down the government out of fear that the junior partner’s involvement in corruption would be exposed. Kurti’s party is in government for the first time and took office with a pledge to clean up Kosovo’s politics. The LDK is an establishment party that has frequently been in government.
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“They know that once the immediate danger of the coronavirus passes, the government will continue its crackdown on corruption and they fear that their past could catch up with them as we dig deeper into what they did when they were in power,” said Deputy Prime Minister Haki Abazi of the Self-Determination Movement.
Even before the coronavirus spread across Europe, relations between the two parties had been poor, primarily over the import tariffs with Serbia, which were imposed in late 2018 by a previous government.
Kurti had proposed lifting the tariffs gradually, provided Serbia ends a campaign of trying to get countries that have recognized Kosovo to reverse their stance. But the LDK and Kosovo’s President Hashim Thaçi backed the U.S. position.
In a surprise development on Friday evening, the government voted to remove the tariffs completely from April 1. But it was unclear whether that would prompt the LDK to withdraw its no-confidence motion. Its ministers did not take part in the vote.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, a decade after a 1998-99 war forced Belgrade to relinquish control over the territory. But Serbia continues to regard Kosovo as a rebel province and relations between the two countries remain tense.
Grenell has lambasted Kurti on Twitter for not removing the tariffs immediately and warned that U.S. assistance to Kosovo could be reduced.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has ramped up pressure on Pristina to lift the tariffs as it seeks to claim a role as peacemaker between the two sides. The charge has been led by Richard Grenell, Trump’s acting director of national intelligence and the U.S. ambassador to Germany, who also serves as U.S. special envoy for Kosovo-Serbia relations.
Grenell has lambasted Kurti on Twitter for not removing the tariffs immediately and warned that U.S. assistance to Kosovo could be reduced. Such comments carry considerable weight in Kosovo, which owes its independence in large part to U.S. military and diplomatic support.
Adding to the pressure on Pristina, figures such as Donald Trump, Jr. and Republican Senator David Perdue, who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, recently raised the prospect of withdrawing the roughly 700 U.S. soldiers stationed in Kosovo.