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| - Albin Kurti has seen prison bars, led street riots and unleashed tear gas in parliament: now the unpredictable politician is in line to become Kosovo's prime minister for a second time, after leading his left-wing party to a landslide win. Once dubbed "Kosovo's Che Guevara" for his radical antics, the 45-year-old hailed a "great victory" for his Vetevendosje (Self-determination) party after it took home nearly half the vote in Sunday's general election, according to preliminary results. After campaigning on a mandate for major change -- particularly rooting out corruption -- he declared a new start for Kosovo, a former Serbian province struggling with a cascade of economic, political and social crises aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic. The vote captured the public's calls for "justice and employment and against corruption and state capture", Kurti, wearing a heavy winter coat as snow fell around him, told cheering fans in Pristina late Sunday. "A lot of work is waiting for us as the country is in multiple crisis. The road ahead is long," he added. By his side was a new ally considered key to his latest success: acting President Vjosa Osmani, another dynamic, young politician who recently joined his camp after leaving the outgoing Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK). The two became a charismatic pair on the campaign trial, rallying youth who are fed up with dismally low wages and soaring unemployment in one of Europe's poorest economies. Mixing a left-wing agenda with nationalism, Kurti has long been an insurgent force in Kosovo politics. After joining electoral politics a decade ago, his party has been steadily increasing its strength. Vetevendosje also finished first in the last 2019 election, but with just over a quarter of the vote, Kurti was forced into a shaky coalition that crumbled after some 50 days. The larger victory this time signals resounding defeat of an old guard who has held sway over Kosovo since it broke away from Belgrade in 2008. Kurti and other critics have long accused those leaders of corruption and nepotism that has warped Kosovo's nascent democratic institutions. As a former student activist, Kurti first gained fame on the streets, organising protests in the 1990s against the Serbian regime's repression of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority. The activism landed Kurti in a Serbian jail for two years when he was in his 20s. After the province broke away from Serbia in a 1998-99 war, Kurti became a leading critic of both local leaders and the international community for its outsized influence Kosovo, which was a UN protectorate until 2008. Now he needs to assure the West he is no longer the radical whose supporters were rioting in the streets not so long ago. As a grassroots street movement, Vetevendosje was known for massive rallies that sometimes veered into violence. Some of the worst incidents around a decade ago saw supporters flip vehicles belonging to EULEX, the European Union's rule of law mission in Kosovo. In one 2007 rally, two Vetevendosje members were killed by rubber bullets fired by UN police. As elected lawmakers, Kurti and his MPs became known for provocative stunts like unleashing tear gas inside the parliament to protest vote outcomes. Those incidents led to court conviction in 2018 for Kurti that barred him from running as an MP on the ballot. But his party could still appoint him to be their prime minister. In an interview with AFP in 2018, Kurti rejected the "radical" and "nationalist" labels, saying his group has been better characterised as social democratic since 2013. "One could say that I am a romantic person but I am not a chauvinist," he added. To form a ruling majority, Kurti only needs the backing of ethnic minority parties, including Serbs, who are slated 20 seats in the 120-member parliament. If prime minister he will quickly come under heavy pressure from the West to revive Kosovo's stalling dialogue with Belgrade aimed at resolving their "frozen conflict", even if he has said that domestic problems are his top priority. Serbia still rejects Kosovo's independence and has blocked its efforts to secure full global recognition. Their lingering hostility is a source of frequent tension, and a deal is required for either side to realise its dreams of joining the EU. Controversially, Kurti was once a vocal advocate of merging Albanian-majority Kosovo and Albania, though he said more recently that now is not the right time. ih-ssm/txw
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