Justina Shiroka Pula

Justina Shiroka Pula (also styled Justina Shiroka-Pula; born 1953 in Pristina) is a Kosovan economist and university professor serving as President of Kosovo since 7 October 2026. The Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo chose her in a secret ballot that opened six minutes before a midnight constitutional deadline and gave her 81 votes in the 120-seat chamber, one more than the 80 required to win in the first round. She took the oath before parliament in the same sitting.

She finished primary and secondary school in Pristina and graduated in 1976 from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Pristina. In 1984 she completed postgraduate studies in the theory and policy of economic development at the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the University of Zagreb, and she holds a doctorate from the University of Pristina for a thesis titled Demographic Investments and the Economic Development of Kosovo (Investimet demografike dhe zhvillimi ekonomik i Kosovës). After a short spell at the People's Bank of Kosovo she joined the Faculty of Economics in 1978 as an assistant in operational research and was elected a full professor in 2004. Her teaching and research have centered on operational research and on quantitative methods applied to management and decision-making.

From 2008 to 2011 she was minister of energy and mining in the government of Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi, and from 2011 to 2014 she sat in the Assembly for the Democratic Party of Kosovo. On 19 December 2025 the Kosova Academy of Sciences and Arts, founded in 1975, elected her president, the first woman to lead the institution, succeeding Mehmet Kraja for a four-year term that could be renewed.

The presidency had been vacant since Vjosa Osmani's term ended on 4 April 2026, with Assembly speaker Albulena Haxhiu acting as president. On 23 September 2026 the Constitutional Court held that the 60-day window for electing a president had begun on 8 August and would expire on 6 October, after which parliament would dissolve and new elections would follow. Prime Minister Albin Kurti, of Vetëvendosje, proposed Shiroka Pula late on 6 October after a day of deadlock with the Democratic Party of Kosovo. Lawmakers first passed, by 88 votes, amendments narrowing the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, the Hague-based war-crimes court, and then elected her over Eliza Hoxha, the other candidate. Addressing the Assembly, she said the mandate "does not belong to one person alone" but to citizens, institutions, and the state. The sitting ended about twelve minutes after midnight, which some experts said could invite a legal challenge, though none was announced at once.

Early life and education

Family and childhood

Justina Shiroka Pula, a name also written Justina Shiroka-Pula, was born in 1953 in Pristina. The Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo gives that birth year in its roll of regular members. Radio Free Europe, covering her election as president of Kosovo in October 2026, described her as 72.

She is a daughter of Simon Shiroka (1927–1994), a filigree artist from Prizren. A biographical note published with her 2014 interview states that he learned silver-wire work from Prizren masters, continued his training in Belgrade and then in Zagreb, and settled in Pristina, where he died in 1994. Shkëlzen Maliqi, presenting a monograph on Shiroka written by Justina Shiroka-Pula, has described him as a filigree master who turned to art on his own, with objects from the 1960s kept in the family collection and shown in Pristina and in Tirana.

In the interview, given to the newspaper Shekulli when about 135 of his works were exhibited, she said the family came from craftspeople, but that her father did not want filigree and other metalwork left as ornament alone. He tried, she said, to give the objects life and a soul, using folklore, myth, and ethnography, and he wanted his children to care about art even though he did not want them to live by the craft, which he considered a difficult living. As children, she and her sisters stayed near the bench: they sometimes made small elements, such as birds, butterflies, and flowers, and helped when different metals were combined. There were three sisters, and none of them took up the work. She also said that he was paralyzed and kept to his bed for five years before his death, and that he went on drawing, in pencil and in color, through that illness. The works remained with the family.

Schooling and degrees

She completed primary school and secondary school in Pristina, and in 1976 she graduated from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Pristina. She finished postgraduate studies in the theory and policy of economic development in 1984 at the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the University of Zagreb.

The same accounts state that she received a doctorate at the University of Pristina. The dissertation was titled Investimet demografike dhe zhvillimi ekonomik i Kosovës (Demographic Investments and the Economic Development of Kosovo). Radio Free Europe’s rendering of the academy biography names that thesis and does not date the defense. Another profile published in October 2026 attributed a 1977 defense to the academy biography, which would place the doctorate a year after the first degree and several years before the Zagreb qualification.

According to the academy biography as reported when she became president of the academy in December 2025, she also did postdoctoral study at the University of Linz in Austria and at the University of Arizona in the United States, and she took further professional training at universities abroad. Those reports do not give the years of the stays.

Academic career

University of Pristina

Shiroka-Pula's university career was based at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Pristina in Pristina. The biography published by the Kosovo Academy of Sciences and Arts states that, after a short period in 1977 at the People's Bank of Kosovo, she entered teaching at the faculty in 1978 and was first employed as an assistant for the course Operational Research (Kërkimet operacionale).

The biography says she was later advanced to lecturer and docent and was elected a full professor (profesor ordinar) in 2004, and that she still described the faculty career as continuing. Its wording places "(1978)" after the docentship as well as on her entry into teaching. A Dukagjini profile of 7 October 2026, drawn from the academy biography, separates the points: she began in 1978 as an assistant, passed through the academic ranks, and was elected full professor in 2004. Radio Free Europe's Albanian service, summarizing the biography in December 2025, also dated the start of faculty teaching to 1978 and called the first post that of a lecturer.

As the academy biography describes the teaching, she applied mathematical and statistical methods and models to planning and to the optimization of business processes, and later to problems of business development, management and decision-making. She taught on bachelor's and master's programs and supervised diploma work, master's theses and doctoral dissertations. The biography says operational research was then a new field at the faculty, with few qualified staff, and characterizes her part in developing it in Kosovo—through that teaching and supervision—as a pioneering one. That is the academy's own assessment; it is not independently documented in the sources reviewed here.

The biography also records a 2013 inter-university postdoctoral exchange at the University of Linz and the University of Arizona, plus shorter professional courses: health-care management in Italy (2002), business development and entrepreneurship in the United States (2003), and curriculum research and textbook preparation in Belgium (2004).

Posts outside Pristina

The academy biography states that from 1994 to 1999 she lectured at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Tetovo, and in 2003–2004 at South East European University (UEJL), both in Tetovo, in present-day North Macedonia. It does not name the courses, the share of her time, or a formal rank at either place.

Those outside appointments fell in years when Albanian-language higher education was politically contested on both sides of the border. Human Rights Watch reported that, after the revocation of Kosovo's autonomy, Albanian teachers who refused a loyalty oath and a curriculum set in Belgrade were dismissed; by October 1991 only fifteen Albanian professors remained at the university in Pristina, all teaching in Serbian, while Albanian pupils and university students attended a privately financed parallel system in homes and other improvised premises. The biography does not say whether Shiroka-Pula herself taught in that parallel system. In Macedonia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported in April 1998 that Tetovo University—founded, on that account, in 1995 by Fadil Sulejmani, a former professor at the University of Pristina—was an Albanian-language institution of about 4,000 students which the Macedonian government still treated as illegal and said did not exist. South East European University was a separate, internationally backed project: the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities recorded that it was officially opened in Tetovo on 20 November 2001, after a July 2000 law permitted minority languages in private higher education, in order to widen access to university study in those languages. Her biography places the SEEU lecturing in 2003 and 2004, after that opening.

University administration

Within the University of Pristina, the academy biography lists her as head of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics in 1999, a member of the university Senate in 2000 and of the University Board in 2001, chair of the board of the master's program in health management in 2002, and a member in 2002 of the commission of the Summer University of Pristina. It also lists her in 2013 as a member of the publishing council of the University of Pristina "Hasan Prishtina." Dukagjini's 2026 account of the biography adds that she was head of the Department of Management and Informatics and describes the university board as the governing board; the copy archived in February 2024 names the 1999 mathematics and statistics headship and the 2000–2002 posts, but does not mention a management-and-informatics headship or date one. The biography does not describe the duties attached to the Senate or board seats. The 1999 department headship followed a decade in which, as Human Rights Watch documented, Albanian staff had been removed from the official university.

Research and publications

Operational research and decision-making

At the Faculty of Economics of the University of Pristina, Shiroka-Pula’s teaching texts apply operations research to managerial choice. A master’s syllabus lists Metodat e transportit të programimit linear (Faculty of Economics, Pristina, 2007) for transport models and linear programming. Vendimarrja menaxheriale (2015), with Besnik Krasniqi, is assigned on a master’s course at the University “Haxhi Zeka”, and Kolegji Biznesi assigns Menaxhmenti dhe vendosja afariste (Pristina, 2018), credited to Ibrahim Kuka, J. Pula and B. Krasniqi.

With Albana Berisha Qehaja and Enver Kutllovci she reviewed studies from 1990 to 2015 on strategic-management tools. A 2017 synthesis in Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis listed the tools most often recorded worldwide as SWOT analysis, benchmarking, PEST analysis, “what if” analysis, vision and mission statements, Porter’s five forces, financial analysis, key success factors, cost–benefit analysis and customer satisfaction. A companion paper in Croatian Economic Survey found more of these tools in use in developed countries than in developing countries, and the fewest in transition economies.

Samples from Kosovo link decision style to plans to start a firm. A 2019 study of 230 managers, with Besnik A. Krasniqi and Gentrit Berisha, found that spontaneous and intuitive styles predicted entrepreneurial intentions, and that rational, dependent and avoidant styles did not. A 2021 paper with Berisha, Krasniqi and Kutllovci found a positive association only for a forcing style of handling conflict.

A 2018 Ekonomika article with Drita Kacandolli-Gjonbalaj, Afërdita Berisha-Shaqiri and Myslym Osmani judged procurement efficiency very low for 243 operators, using discrimination and favouritism as proxies. Aggregate five-point scores were about 4.16 for corruption, 4.18 for favouritism and 3.97 for discrimination; political intervention, weak transparency, thin legal and contract capacity, corruption and weak staff knowledge were the factors identified.

Entrepreneurship, firms, and public policy

With Krasniqi and Kutllovci, a 2008 article in the International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management used ordinary least squares on 350 small and medium-sized enterprises. Results ran against Gibrat’s law and with Jovanovic’s learning theory: multi-plant firms, separated ownership and management, older founders at start-up and entrepreneurial teams grew faster, while founders who had been unemployed grew more slowly. With Berisha, “Defining Small and Medium Enterprises: a critical review” (2015) argued that smaller firms are easy to distinguish qualitatively, but that employment, turnover and asset thresholds differ across institutions, laws and industries. The paper traces the European Union’s 1996 and 2003 recommendations as attempts to narrow that gap, including outside the Union.

A 2019 project of the Kosova Academy of Sciences and Arts, Analiza e ekonomisë në hije në Kosovë (ISBN 978-9951-26-017-6), was prepared with Isa Mustafa, Krasniqi, Arnis Sauka, Berisha, Lekë Pula, Saranda Lajqi and others. Using the Putniņš and Sauka entrepreneur survey, with a response rate above 88 percent, the team put the shadow economy in 2018 at 39.5 percent of gross domestic product, about €2.66 billion against stated GDP of €6,725.9 million. Unreported business income, under-reported employment and envelope wages made up 47.5, 28.5 and 24 percent of the index; by sector it ran from 38.7 percent in retail to 43.4 percent in construction.

The 2023 chapter “Informal Entrepreneurship in Kosovo: An Institutionalist Approach,” with Mustafa, Krasniqi, Veland Ramadani and Liridon Kryeziu, places that reading in Entrepreneurship Development in the Balkans. With Will Bartlett of the London School of Economics and Krasniqi, a 2023 multilevel study in Applied Research in Quality of Life used the 2019 Eurobarometer for 28 European countries and reported a strong association between subjective well-being and institutional quality and trust.

Books

Pozita e ekonomisë së Kosovës në konkurrencën globale (The Position of Kosovo’s Economy in Global Competitiveness; 2023) is a 127-page academy report (ISBN 9789951260701). The National Library of Albania lists Shiroka-Pula, Mustafa and Hivzi Islami, among others, on the project team.

The same catalogue lists Competitiveness in the Western Balkans: Challenges and Opportunities for Kosovo (Konkurrenca në Ballkanin Perëndimor: sfidat dhe mundësitë për Kosovën), a 230-page 2023 volume of the Section of Social Sciences (ISBN 9789951260794) edited by Shiroka-Pula, Mustafa and Besnik A. Krasniqi. In 2022 the academy issued Ekonomia në hije: trajtim teorik dhe empirik (The Shadow Economy: A Theoretical and Empirical Approach), by Mustafa, Shiroka-Pula and Besnik A. Krasniqi, edited by Gjyljeta Mushkolaj (207 pages; ISBN 9789951260633). It was presented in late April or early May 2023 at a joint book fair with the Academy of Sciences of Albania. Mustafa’s published account called the shadow economy general but especially costly, where law and institutions are weak, for revenue, labour rights, competition and investment; the reviewers named were Hivzi Islami and Muhamet Mustafa.

Zhvillimi ekonomik dhe investimet demografike në Kosovë, by Justina Shiroka (Pula), appeared in Pristina from the Economic Institute in 1997: 304 illustrated pages, an English summary, a bibliography on pages 297–304 and a print run of 200.

Civil society and women's economic participation

Business networks after the war

After the Kosovo War, women's groups in Kosovo organized for rights advocacy and for access to business. The member biography of the Kosova Academy of Sciences and Arts, archived in January 2025, states that from 2001 to 2005 Justina Shiroka-Pula worked in civil society on women's empowerment, gender equality, business development and entrepreneurship. It lists her as founder, in 2001, of the Kosovo Business Women's Network (Albanian: Rrjeti i Biznesit të Grave Kosovare, KBWN); as a member that year of the STAR Network of World Learning in Washington and a local expert for an economy working group of the European Centre for Minority Issues; as a 2002 member of a working group of the Kosovo Initiative for Gender Equality; and as a 2003 member of the International Alliance of Women. It also says she chaired boards of several non-governmental organizations in the field and, from 2012, sat on the board of the Albanian Centre for Strategic Studies in Tirana.

The KBWN name does not appear among later members of the Kosovo Women's Network, begun in 1996 as an informal network of women's groups, and the network is distinct from the Kosovo Women's Chamber of Commerce (G7), which states that seven women entrepreneurs founded it in June 2013. The Academy biography remains the principal published source for the 2001 founding claim.

Gender, academia, and public advocacy

On 31 March 2026, as president of the Academy, she led a roundtable on women and girls in science and academia, held with support from UN Women. The Kosovo Women's Network said its executive director, Igballe Rogova, took part.

UN Women reported in April that more than 100 women leaders, academics and professionals attended, and quoted her: "The talent and potential of women and girls are there, but the path to leadership is still not fully open. The issue is not a lack of girls in science, it's a lack of space and opportunity for them to advance." Citing its EU-funded Kosovo Gender Country Profile, the agency said women were 70 percent of bachelor's graduates, 64 percent of master's graduates and 56 percent of doctoral graduates, held 22.5 percent of decision-making posts in 2022, and accounted for only one of the Academy's 25 regular members.

Party office had carried a similar argument a decade earlier. On 22 May 2015 the 27-member steering council of the Democratic Party of Kosovo unanimously elected her chair of Gruaja Demokratike e Kosovës (Democratic Women of Kosovo). The next day she told Epoka e Re that a gender quota was not enough: "As long as women are not in decision-making positions, I think Albanian society cannot be democratic and cannot move forward." She called women's representation in the government of the time very small and proposed more deputy ministers and board seats.

On 1 July 2015, in Prizren, she presented a party platform on women's position and met a local crafts and businesswomen's association and the counseling group Dora e Dorës. In December 2016 she told more than 300 women from party structures that women's growing influence in politics, society and institutions was strengthening the state. Telegrafi reported on 13 September 2017, citing party sources, that she had resigned as chair and that women from party branches had asked her to stay; the reasons were not published. On 12 February 2026, still Academy president, she gave the keynote at a Leadership and Mentoring Program event organized by the National Democratic Institute with Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation support, arguing that networking strengthened women's role in public life.

Minister of Energy and Mining

Appointment and the energy system

On 9 January 2008 the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo elected a cabinet led by Hashim Thaçi of the Democratic Party of Kosovo, in coalition with the Democratic League of Kosovo, and named Justina Shiroka Pula of that party (Pula-Shiroka on the cabinet list) minister of energy and mining, weeks before Kosovo's 17 February declaration of independence. She held that title until February 2011. Reuters, reporting her 2026 election as president, called the post minister of the economy, unlike the cabinet list and the handover record.

Generation, lignite mining, distribution and supply sat with the publicly owned Kosovo Energy Corporation (KEK); transmission had already been separated into KOSTT. The ministry's Energy Strategy 2009–2018, using October 2008 KEK figures, put Kosovo A and Kosovo B at 1,478 MW installed, with blocks A1 and A2 permanently out of service, and available output from the remaining units plus the 35 MW Ujman/Gazivoda hydro plant at about 900 MW. Kosovo B had run derated since September 2007 after turbine damage, the Bardh and Mirash lignite pits were treated as too small for the plants' remaining lives, and a Sibovc southwest mine was planned to start in 2010. KOSTT's grid, 1,187 km of high-voltage line, connected Serbia, North Macedonia, Montenegro and, only at 220 kV, Albania.

The strategy said Kosovo had been a net importer since 2000, with imports at 12.6 percent of consumption in 2008 and supply still cut on a 5:1 timetable. Of 4,582 GWh consumed in 2007, 53 percent was billed and 76 percent of billed energy collected; commercial losses were about €99 million, and distribution technical losses stayed near 17 percent through 2008 while commercial losses eased from about 30 percent to about 25.8 percent. Kosovo was a party to the Energy Community Treaty from 1 July 2006, with the ministry leading the domestic working group. It recorded dust and untreated discharges from the plants and mines, and read the EU Large Combustion Plants Directive as allowing Kosovo A only until the end of 2017.

Generation, Kosovo C, and mining

The main new-build proposal was Kosova e Re, or New Kosovo (also called Kosovo C), a private lignite station on Sibovc coal, prepared with World Bank Group technical assistance and European Commission-financed studies.

The 2009 strategy still set two phases of 1,000 MW, the first to replace Kosovo A and leave room to rehabilitate Kosovo B, with pre-qualification done and financial close aimed at 2010. On 18 March 2010 she told the Assembly that about 1,000 MW was required by 2018 and about 2,000 MW installed by 2025; PDK and LDK backed the text, but after opposition criticism the Assembly postponed adoption. Ethem Çeku, her predecessor, called the strategy outdated and harmful to investment, and a New Kosovo Alliance deputy said the plant's size was still unclear.

In March 2010 Reuters reported that she had shortlisted four of six bidders for a 1,000 MW coal plant, cut from a 2,000 MW export scheme, at an estimated €700 million to €1 billion. Balkan Insight later named Adani with PT Adani Global, AES with Demir Export, Park Holding, and PPC with ContourGlobal, and said RWE had withdrawn. In May 2011 she said a meeting on 16 December 2009 had fixed the plant at 600 MW, in two 300 MW units, and blamed shifting proposals from US- and World Bank-funded advisers, plus unnamed diplomatic pressure. Çeku called that irresponsible, saying she had run the project and that advisers could not force the government.

On 30 October 2008 the government approved a public-private Zhur hydropower project, estimating the investment at about €300 million and putting renewables at about 3 percent of production against an Energy Community 2020 goal of at least 20 percent. The strategy said a World Bank update of the Zhur feasibility study, with a preliminary environmental and social assessment, found the scheme viable; it was not built while she was minister.

Distribution privatization was timetabled, not completed. In February 2010 a committee planned an investor by year-end for a company split from KEK distribution and supply; finance minister Ahmet Shala said government and donors had already spent about €1 billion on supply. Shiroka Pula warned that the sale would fail unless its social and technical effects were faced, and that a sharp tariff rise could cause unrest amid crisis and high unemployment.

Law No. 03/L-163 on mines and minerals, still drafted in the strategy, was published in the Official Gazette on 27 August 2010; licensing stayed with the Independent Commission for Mines and Minerals. The strategy called for less dust from mines, plants and ash dumps and for Kosovo B to move toward EU emission limits. In 2012, after she had left, residents near Obiliq and civil-society groups asked the World Bank Inspection Panel to review support for a new lignite plant, citing pollution from Kosovo A and B.

Closure of the portfolio

On 22 February 2011 the Assembly elected another Thaçi government in which Besim Beqaj was minister of economic development and no energy and mining minister appeared. On 24 February she handed the office to Beqaj; the record states that the Ministry of Energy and Mining, with some departments of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, would merge into the Ministry of Economic Development. Regulation No. 02/2011, published on 22 March 2011, gave that ministry economic policy together with energy, mining, telecommunications, information technology and public enterprises. In May 2011 Beqaj's adviser still expected a constructor to be named in early 2012; Shiroka Pula declined further comment and referred questions to him.

Member of the Assembly

Election and party affiliation

Justina Shiroka Pula sat in the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo during its fourth legislature, chosen at the early election of 12 December 2010. On 2 November the Assembly passed a motion of no confidence in the government of Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi, by 66 votes to one, with two abstentions; the majority included members of his Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK). The Democratic League of Kosovo, which had left the coalition in October after a Constitutional Court of Kosovo ruling that the president could not also lead a party, did not vote. Acting president Jakup Krasniqi dissolved the Assembly and called the 12 December poll.

On the list PDK filed with the Central Election Commission, published on 14 November 2010, she was Justina Shiroka-Pula in ninth place. The Commission’s list of elected deputies, reported on 30 January 2011, gave PDK 34 seats and named her, as Justina Pula, after Hasime Krasniqi and before Lumnije Morina. It did not give her preference-vote total.

The legislature opened on 21 February 2011. Mandates were verified, deputies took the oath, and Krasniqi was re-elected speaker. The prime minister’s office published the new cabinet the next day: Besim Beqaj was minister of economic development, and Shiroka Pula was not included. On 24 February Beqaj took over the Ministry of Energy and Mining from her. The ministry’s note says she briefed him on her three years in office, and that energy and mining, with some finance-ministry departments, would be merged into Economic Development. She then sat as a PDK deputy.

Legislative record

Her documented committee seat is Assembly decision No. 04-V-007 of 10 March 2011, signed by Krasniqi. It named her a member—not a chair—of the nine-member Committee on Human Rights, Gender Equality, Missing Persons and Petitions, as a nominee of the PDK group. Suzan Novobërdaliu was chair.

Public indexes of the 2011–2014 record do not attribute a draft law or a substantive plenary speech to her. The transcript of the sittings of 13, 14 and 19 March 2014 shows she was still a deputy: her name is called in rolls for secret ballots. On 19 March the chamber elected members of the Independent Media Commission by secret ballot. Adem Grabovci, head of the PDK group, proposed “Professor Justina Shiroka-Pula” as the group’s member of the voting commission, one deputy from each parliamentary group.

She announced that 73 deputies had voted in the first round. As chair of the commission for the runoff between Anita Morina and Lumturije Blakaj, she reported that 66 deputies voted, seven ballots were invalid, and Morina, with 34 votes to Blakaj’s 25, was appointed to the Council of the Independent Media Commission under Article 65 of the Constitution, Article 11 of Law No. 04/L-44 and Article 51 of the Assembly’s rules. Salih Morina, reading the first-count conclusion, listed her—as Justina Pula-Shiroka—among the seven members.

The legislature ended on 7 May 2014, when the Assembly dissolved itself by 90 votes to four, with three abstentions, so that early elections could break a blockage over turning the Kosovo Security Force into an army and over reserved minority seats. The election was held on 8 June 2014. The March roll is the latest trace of her in the chamber; the records show neither a resignation before dissolution nor a bill in her name.

Kosovo Academy of Sciences and Arts

Membership and section office

Justina Shiroka Pula entered the Kosova Academy of Sciences and Arts (Albanian: Akademia e Shkencave dhe e Arteve e Kosovës, ASHAK), in Pristina, as a corresponding member. At its electoral assembly on 21 December 2016 the Academy elected her, under the name Justina Pula, to the Section of Social Sciences, with Frashër Demaj, Gjyljeta Mushkolaj and Muhamedin Kullashi.

The Kosovo Academy of Sciences and Arts building in Pristina.

The Academy's yearbook for 2018 still lists her as a corresponding member and as secretary of the Section of Social Sciences, one of the offices on the Presidency. In that role she opened, on 8–9 June 2018, the Academy's conference on the League of Prizren, held with the Academy of Sciences of Albania. On 22 December 2020, at the Assembly's 102nd meeting, eighteen regular members voted for new regular members. She received 12 votes, above the ten-vote majority required that day, and was declared a regular member with Edi Shukriu (also 12) and Muhamedin Kullashi (10). Arsim Bajrami and Gjyljeta Mushkolaj, the section's other candidates, were not elected.

By 21 December 2021 she was being introduced in public as the newly elected vice-president. She resigned that post on 27 January 2023. In a letter seen by Koha, she cited "the circumstances created in the Academy and around it, and the impossibility of collegial and human cooperation with the leadership of the Academy," and said she would remain a member and continue research.

Koha set the resignation against a dispute already under way. It reported that, two days earlier, a group of regular and corresponding members had formally opened a procedure to dismiss president Mehmet Kraja. The quarrel had become public in December 2022, after the Section of Social Sciences objected to a text Kraja published on the Academy's website, "Synimet destabilizuese të Serbisë në Kosovë dhe në Ballkanin Perëndimor" ("Serbia's destabilizing aims in Kosovo and the Western Balkans"). As Koha reported the section's reaction, it accused him of a "non-academic approach" and of publishing an "unscientific document," drafted by the head of the institution, that was causing a split with serious consequences for the Academy.

Presidency of the academy

On 19 December 2025 the Assembly held its regular election for the Presidency and chose Shiroka Pula president. Koha reported that she had no opposing candidate and that the vote was unanimous, for a four-year term, and that she was the first woman to lead the Academy. She succeeded Kraja, whom the same account described as president from 2021 and also from 2019, when Nexhat Daci's mandate ended after he turned 75. The Academy's own notice of the sitting, carried by Telegrafi, also recorded the election of Fejzullah Krasniqi as vice-president and Bardh Rugova as scientific secretary, and the confirmation of section secretaries Nysret Krasniqi (linguistics and literature), Frashër Demaj (social sciences), Enver Hamiti (natural sciences) and Ismet Jonuzi (arts). Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Kosovo service dated the institution to 1975 and noted that the president's mandate is four years, with the possibility of re-election.

The next day she told Koha that her first priority was opening the Academy to universities and academies in the region and beyond. She said that by June it would sign agreements for "the exchange of people, the exchange of ideas, the cooperation of projects," including competition for European projects across several states and universities. She also cited joint work with the Academy of Sciences of Albania on an Enciklopedia shqiptare ("Albanian Encyclopedia"), which she expected to see a first publication in about two years and which she said both governments were financing, and an "Academy of the Young" for researchers aged 22 to 40 who would not be formal members.

In April 2026 UN Women described the mandate as running until December 2029 and reported a meeting at the Academy, organized with its support and attended by more than 100 women, on women and girls in science. Shiroka Pula said that "the talent and potential of women and girls are there, but the path to leadership is still not fully open," and that the issue was "not a lack of girls in science" but "a lack of space and opportunity for them to advance." Citing a gender profile prepared with European Union funding, UN Women wrote that only one of the Academy's 25 regular members was a woman.

On 7 October 2026 the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo elected her president of Kosovo with 81 votes. Reporting of the ballot still identified her as the woman leading the Academy of Sciences and Arts; it did not describe a resignation from the academy presidency.

The 2026 presidential election

Vacancy and the October deadline

Vjosa Osmani’s term as president of Kosovo ended on 4 April 2026 with no successor elected. The Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo elects the president by secret ballot. The constitution requires a two-thirds majority of all deputies—80 of 120—in each of the first two rounds; a third round, if needed, is between the two leading candidates and is decided by a majority of all deputies, and failure then dissolves the Assembly, with elections within 45 days. The Assembly is also dissolved if no president is elected within 60 days from the start of the election procedure. When the president is temporarily unable to exercise the office, the speaker serves as acting president, and that role may not be exercised for longer than six months.

On 5 March, after a failed vote, Osmani dissolved parliament. The Constitutional Court of Kosovo overturned the decree and set 28 April as the new deadline. Vetëvendosje, led by Prime Minister Albin Kurti, nominated its own candidates, including Foreign Minister Glauk Konjufca; a later nominee, Feride Rushiti, received 63 votes on 27 April, short of 80, while opposition deputies boycotted and denied the chamber a quorum of 80. The Assembly elected in December 2025 dissolved at midnight on 28 April. Speaker Albulena Haxhiu, of Vetëvendosje, served as acting president, and the Central Election Commission awaited her date; 31 May and 7 June were under discussion.

The snap election was held on 7 June 2026. With 97.8 percent of ballots counted, preliminary results put Vetëvendosje at 43 percent, the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) at 21 percent, and the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) at 17.6 percent, on a turnout of about 37 percent excluding conditional ballots, votes by people with special needs, and the diaspora.

On 23 September the Constitutional Court, deciding a PDK complaint about inauguration deadlines, held that the 60 days for electing a president had started on 8 August and would expire on 6 October. It treated the Assembly as already inaugurated, did not annul Kurti’s re-election by 62 votes in a boycotted session, and ordered election of the remaining deputy speaker. Missing the date would dissolve parliament and require elections within 45 days. An August understanding between Kurti and LDK leader Lumir Abdixhiku on Bekim Sejdiu, a former Constitutional Court judge, ended when Sejdiu withdrew on 14 September after disagreement in the LDK group.

The bargain and the court law

On 5 and 6 October, crowds outside the Assembly in Pristina demanded changes to the law on the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, a court based in The Hague and formally part of Kosovo’s judiciary. On 5 October some demonstrators threw glass bottles and pyrotechnics, and police used tear gas and water cannon. Police said six officers were injured, 11 civilians sought medical attention, and three protesters were taken to a police station; the Police Inspectorate opened a preliminary inquiry into police conduct. Demonstrators returned on 6 October, when police reported one person injured by a pyrotechnic.

The pressure followed convictions on 16 September 2026. The court sentenced former Kosovo Liberation Army leaders—former president Hashim Thaçi and Jakup Krasniqi—to 25 years each, Kadri Veseli to 18 years, and Rexhep Selimi to 13 years, for war crimes including arbitrary detention, cruel treatment, torture, and murder from April 1998 to 20 June 1999. They were acquitted of other crimes-against-humanity charges, and defense teams said they would appeal. The PDK, which Thaçi founded, proposed the amendments. A first reading passed on 5 October; protesters linked to the KLA veterans’ organization then sought an immediate second reading and blocked some deputies from leaving.

In a second and final reading immediately before the presidential ballot, deputies adopted the amendments with 88 votes. The text limits the court’s temporal scope to 1 July 1999–31 December 2000, excluding the wartime period, and restricts it to offenses directly linked to alleged organ-trafficking at detention sites named in a 2011 Council of Europe report. It caps imprisonment at 15 years, requires sentences to be served in Kosovo, and makes people convicted by a final judgment eligible for a presidential pardon. The 2015 law had set the mandate from 1 January 1998 to 31 December 2000, drawing on a Council of Europe inquiry by Swiss senator Dick Marty. An EU task force later found enough evidence to indict for war crimes and crimes against humanity, but not for organ trafficking. Passage by itself does not decide whether the changes take effect: legal experts told RFE/RL that Kosovo had to honor its international commitments and that the amendments could face constitutional review.

The PDK, led by Bedri Hamza, required the court law to pass before it would support a president; Kurti had wanted the presidential vote first. After Hamza refused further face-to-face talks until the amendments passed, the sides exchanged offers through press conferences. Kurti’s third proposal—the one accepted—was Justina Shiroka Pula, an economist who was the first woman to lead the Kosovo Academy of Sciences and Arts, energy and mining minister from 2008 to 2011, and a PDK deputy from 2011 to 2014, with the court-law vote taken first. Hamza accepted her candidacy and nominated Eliza Hoxha against her. Protesters outside applauded the amendments.

The ballot and the oath

The secret ballot began six minutes before midnight on 6 October. Shiroka Pula received 81 votes in the first round, one more than the 80 required, and was elected without another ballot. She took the oath in the same sitting; the constitution starts the five-year term at that oath. She told the Assembly: “This mandate does not belong to one person alone. It belongs to our citizens, our institutions, and the state for which so many generations sacrificed.”

Some experts noted that the process ended about 12 minutes after midnight, leaving open a challenge to whether the vote met the 6 October deadline. None was announced immediately. With a president chosen, the Assembly was not dissolved, and another snap parliamentary election was avoided.

Presidency

Powers of the office

The President of Kosovo is head of state and represents the unity of the people of the Republic of Kosovo. Any citizen aged 35 or older may be nominated with the signatures of at least 30 deputies, and a deputy may sign for only one candidate. Each of the first two ballots requires two-thirds of all deputies. If no candidate reaches that figure, a third ballot is held between the two candidates with the most votes on the second ballot, and a majority of all deputies is then enough. If that ballot also fails, the Assembly is dissolved and new elections are held within 45 days. The term is five years, begins when the president takes an oath before the Assembly, and may be renewed only once. The wording of the oath is set by law. The office excludes any other public function and, after election, any role in a political party.

The president represents the Republic internally and externally and leads its foreign policy: signing international agreements, receiving diplomatic credentials, and, with the prime minister, deciding on missions abroad. The president is commander-in-chief of the Kosovo Security Force, appointing its commander on the prime minister's recommendation, and declares a state of emergency in consultation with the prime minister, chairing the Kosovo Security Council while it lasts. The president promulgates laws adopted by the Assembly and may return a law once if it is considered harmful to the legitimate interests of the Republic or of one or more communities; issues decrees; may propose constitutional amendments and refer questions to the Constitutional Court of Kosovo; and grants individual pardons as provided by law. Nominations are tied to other institutions: the candidate for prime minister comes from the party or coalition with an Assembly majority; judges, the Supreme Court president, and prosecutors come from the judicial and prosecutorial councils; and Constitutional Court judges come from the Assembly. The Assembly is dissolved if no government is formed within 60 days of the naming of a prime-ministerial candidate, or if no president is elected within 60 days of the start of that procedure. The president dissolves it by decree when two-thirds of all deputies vote to do so, and may also dissolve it after a successful no-confidence vote.

Start of the term

Early on 7 October 2026 the Assembly elected Justina Shiroka Pula on the first ballot, with 81 votes in the 120-seat legislature, one more than the 80 required for two-thirds of all deputies. She was sworn in before parliament, and the five-year term began with that oath. In the address that followed, she said: "This mandate does not belong to one person alone. It belongs to our citizens, our institutions, and the state for which so many generations sacrificed." She also said she accepted the office with full responsibility, would be president of all citizens without political, ethnic, or social distinction, and would defend the Constitution, the interest of the Republic, and the dignity of citizens, working for unity, justice, development, stronger institutions, and a clear Euro-Atlantic orientation. The public record at the oath was limited to that address; accounts of the session did not report a decree or any other official act.

Family and public profile

The Shiroka family and art

Shiroka Pula's father, Simon Shiroka, was born on 20 March 1927 in Prizren, long a center of precious-metal crafts in Kosovo. He learned filigree from Prizren masters, studied in Belgrade and then Zagreb, and worked in Pristina, taking silver and other metals into sculpture and painting rather than leaving them as jewelry. A biography issued for his 2017 Paris retrospective described totem figures, ethnographic pieces, and figurines of fine silver wire from the 1950s and 1960s as work that contemporaries, expecting rings and necklaces, found hard to place.

Shiroka died in Pristina in 1994. In a 2014 interview with the daily Shekulli, given as about 135 works from the family collection were shown in Tirana, Shiroka Pula said that she and her two sisters came from a line of craftsmen and that their father had not wanted filigree left as decoration alone. He used folklore and myth to interest the children in art, she said, but discouraged them from trying to live by the craft; none of the three sisters, nor their eight children, continued it, and the sisters kept the works in a private gallery open to visitors, hoped to open a Simon Shiroka museum, and treated the pieces as family property.

That collection supplied a retrospective at the National Gallery of Kosovo, curated by its director, Erzen Shkololli, and open from 28 June to 28 August 2013. The gallery and the family were then preparing a monograph to be edited by the critic Shkëlzen Maliqi, and Shiroka's widow, Antoneta, was reported to have helped choose works she considered meaningful to him. The retrospective, again curated by Shkololli, was presented on 19 September 2014 at the National Gallery of Arts in Tirana, within a joint Albania–Kosovo cultural calendar. In Paris, a show ran from 10 to 25 November 2017 at Salle Jean Mouly in the 4th-arrondissement town hall, organized with the Embassy of Kosovo. Autostrada Biennale later exhibited untitled mixed-media paintings and sculptures credited to the Shiroka Family Gallery, describing them as joining silversmithing with dream imagery, filigree motifs, and Kosovar symbols.

Public identity and reception

Coverage of the election in the early hours of 7 October 2026 presented Shiroka Pula as a late compromise rather than as a party standard-bearer. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that Prime Minister Albin Kurti of Vetëvendosje proposed her late on 6 October, after a day of deadlock with the Democratic Party of Kosovo, and that PDK leader Bedri Hamza accepted the nomination. The same account identified her as an economist and the first woman to lead the Kosovo Academy of Sciences and Arts, and as a former PDK figure: minister of energy and mining from 2008 to 2011 and a member of the Assembly from 2011 to 2014. She received 81 votes, one more than the 80 required to win in the first round of the 120-seat Assembly.

After the oath she said the mandate "does not belong to one person alone" but to citizens, institutions, and the state. Telegrafi reported her further pledge to be "president of all citizens," without political, ethnic, or social distinction, and noted that she succeeded Vjosa Osmani. Emir Abrashi, chairman of the New Kosovo Alliance (AKR), called the outcome welcome because a woman "with long academic, public, and institutional experience" was taking the highest state office, and said Kosovo needed institutional stability, dialogue, and unity.