The Battle for Albulena

The first battle for Albulena took place in 1457 in a field between Lezha and Kruja, but with a final round. Although Hamza Kastriot was also betrayed in that battle, he still managed to win.

It says: Merro Base

This second battle of Albin Kurti, alias “The new skenderbe”, as its worshipers call it, has gone all 30 rounds. It is the longest battle in the history of Albanian politics, baptized as Albulana's “Battle”. Albin Kurti is hosting a Hamza Kastriot from the opposition, but he is not yet coming.

But beyond the black mood, this story crossed all borders.

35 years ago, early in July, Kosovo Assembly deputies were not allowed to gather to declare the Constitutional Declaration on 2 July. And they gathered in front of the Parliament door, all in danger of being killed, and so, without any protocol or parliamentary procedure, declared the Constitutional Declaration expressing Kosovo's aspirations for freedom and independence from the former Yugoslavia, in the new conditions that were being created in the Balkans after the start of its breakup.

35 years later, Kosovo Assembly deputies cannot constitutionalise Parliament because of Albulena. For Albin Kurti and the majority declared by the last election, the battle has shifted from the Parliament institution to Albulan.

If in July 1990 MPs were ready to be killed to be introduced to the Parliament, in July 2025 they are ready to “vrate” so that the Assembly without Albulena is not under contract.

This is a historical deformation for a country that is still alive to those who built its foundations with their own hands. Most of the deputies of July 1990 are still alive and overly offended feel that they have been willing to sacrifice their lives to establish a Parliament, while their descendants today are ready to kill “ ” The place for Albulena.

This joke gets even worse when you see that the world is sinking into bloody wars among the great powers where the Middle East is experiencing hell from the Israeli-Iran conflict, and the war in Ukraine has been trying to prevent Russia for three years.

In all of this troubled story, where Kosovo is still an unfinished history of statehood, where the alliance that freed it no longer exists, and where the US itself is no longer willing to set up planes for Albulena this bitter joke must end. Helen of Troy would not be fighting for her that long.

Her inability to give up this humiliation of parliamentarians indicates, among other things, that it is not a dignified figure worth fighting for, but a doll that has no control of even its dignity. Even for that reason, it does not deserve to hold back the establishment of new Kosovo institutions after the elections.

The unblocking of the Assembly and the launch of the procedure for the new government, initially testing most of Albin Kurti, is urgent. The Constitutional Court has no reason to think until the end of summer to provide a legal solution to this nervous crisis of Kosovo's politics. Otherwise, it will last indefinitely by killing Kosovo.

Dolls like Albulen never die. But Kosovo can drown by remaining in Albin's doll. Like the kids between the doll ruins in their hands.