Two years of VVU's LDK effort, but finally PSD managed to download Ricalo

Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj has had great pressure on the dismissal of Serbian Agriculture Minister Nenad Rikalo for several months.

This was due to accusations weighing on him for mistreating residents of the Lagea “Dania” during the 1990s, up to budget abuses during the ministry's management.

Ricalo was appointed minister by the ranks of Serbian List, as part of agreement that Coalition has PAN was with them.

With the appointment of minister, numerous stories of Pristina citizens were published in the media, which accused Rikallon of torture during wartime. Residents of the neighborhood “dania” charged that during wartime as a senior Serbian Army officer, he had beaten and tortured neighbors living in the building where he too lived. In addition to torture, he was even accused of removing some students from the building.

The residents of “Dirnish” called it a criminal Rikalo and said they wouldn't stop demanding justice until they send him to jail.

These charges of residents weighing heavily on the Serbian minister prompt Prime Minister Haradinaj to be called for a report to the Assembly. Thus, at the 3 October 2018 session, Haradinaj's intervention was held, according to the request of the LDK Parliamentary Group to inform the Parliamentary Group of the Parliamentary Assembly of the public charges displayed against Rikallos.

In that session, Haradinaj had defended his dependence, while he did not even consider his dismissal.

“We respect the legal findings of the mechanisms called on this topic, which are the police, the prosecution, who have confirmed that there is not enough evidence to force us as a government for any specific action”, had declared Prime Minister Haradinaj, alluding to the fact that there is not enough evidence to make the decision to sack the Serbian minister.

At that session, the Democratic League of Kosovo as an opposition party had filed a motion for the dismissal of Rikallos, but that the same had not achieved enough deputies' votes.

The LDK's motion for his dismissal had received 27 votes for, 40 against it, while in early November, the Special Prosecutor's Office suggested they had not found sufficient evidence that Ricardo was involved in war crimes.

After the LDK, the Vetevendosje Movement failed in efforts to sack Rikallos.

As an opposition party, a year earlier Vetevendosje had warned protest on the dismissal of Rikallos.

But the protest warned about Ricalo never happened.

The charges, relatives and attempts at Rikallo's dismissal did not end there, despite Ricalo's failure to show up for months.

Rikallos's subject, the Serbian List, part of the ruling coalition, has been in resignation since March last year, in response to Marko Djuric's arrest by Kosovo Police.

Even so, Ricardo figured as minister of agriculture.

A few months later, the clashes he had had with the head of the Agriculture Development Agency, Elhami Hajdari, were highlighted.

The latter claimed that Ricalo was taking revenge from a grant that had not allowed to end one of the businesses in which the minister's wife, Ricalo, was involved, claiming to have saved farmers from corruption at Hajdari's departure.

A few days ago, the newspaper “Koha Ditore” again published a research into another agricultural ministry relative, this time for 3m euros that were illegally distributed to businesses in grant form.

Doubts about the process of sharing these grants, where there are people involved in politics, also have officials within this ministry, who have told the newspaper that they were unaware of the procedures that have been followed.

Earlier, Rikalos had also come out of business with the Anti - Corruption Agency, having a registered business, by chance in the field of agriculture that he was forced to extinguish.

But all these relatives did not suffice for the Government to share the streets with Ricardo.

The decision on his dismissal, Prime Minister Haradinaj, was made due to the Social Democrat Party's dedication to the vote of the Bill on the Budget 2019.

During yesterday's day, the Social Democrat Party warned the Government for the last time that it really was for Rikallo's dismissal.

The party's MP, Shqipe Pantina, in an interview for Periscope, said her party would not vote on the Business Bill unless the government makes a decision to dismiss the Serbian minister, as one of the terms of this party.

Even after the goal was reached, MPs from this party had a clear and brief message today.

“The good day is seen in the morning”, MP Dardan Sejdiu writes on Facebook, while publishing Haradinaj's decision to sack Ricardo.

And the other MP, Dardan Moliqaj, has called on those who are jealous of the success their party achieved with the Ricallos dismissal, not to mourn this decision and try not to present it as insignificant.

According to him, it is important that there are no people in Government suspected of war crimes and of millions of abuses of the state budget. / P ERISCOPIA