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| - Once dubbed "Kosovo's Che Guevara", Albin Kurti, who..., is a former political prisoner who has led sometimes violent street riots and raucous parliamentary disturbances. Today Kurti, 44, wears a slick suit and has rebranded himself as a social democrat. His left-wing Vetevendosje party and the centre-right Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) have forged a coalition after the two parties won most of the seats in a snap election last October. After months of horse-trading over government posts -- with little focus on ideological differences -- the two groups finally agreed Sunday on a new government to be led by Kurti. Kurti has long been an insurgent force in Kosovo politics, railing against the ex-guerrillas who have held sway over the former Serbian province since independence in 2008. He and other critics accuse them of swindling the people over a decade of corruption and nepotism in one of the poorest parts of Europe. The former student activist first gained fame on the streets, organising protests in the 1990s against the Serbian regime's repression of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority. Kurti's activism landed him in a Serbian jail for two years. After the province broke away from Serbia in the 1998-99 war, Kurti became a leading critic of both local leaders and the international community for its outsized influence in Kosovo. Now he needs to convince the West he is no longer the radical whose supporters were rioting in the streets not so long ago. Vetevendosje, which means "self-determination" in Albanian, has flexed its muscles over the years with massive rallies that have 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. On several occasions in 2018, Kurti's lawmakers protested vote outcomes by unleashing tear gas inside the parliament. But in an interview with AFP in 2018, he 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. As prime minister, Kurti will be under heavy pressure from the West to revive a deadlocked dialogue with Belgrade aimed at resolving their "frozen conflict". 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 in the war-scarred region. Kurti told lawmakers on Monday he would take charge of the EU-led talks previously run by President Hashim Thaci, his main political enemy. Kurti told AFP earlier he would start by reaching out to Kosovo Serbs, and then consult the EU about how to prepare for a new dialogue with Belgrade. "We have to prepare it well. We cannot afford to have another failure," he said. Controversially, Kurti was once a vocal advocate of merging Albanian-majority Kosovo and Albania, though he said recently that now is not the right time. Albania's red-and-black flag however still dominates his party rallies, smothering the blue and yellow colours of Kosovo. Supporters also sing Albania's national anthem instead of their own. ih/ljv/ks/gd
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