Power can pose a dilemma when you have made your name as a rebel, as Albin Kurti, Kosovo’s would-be new prime minister, is discovering.
Mr Kurti, 44, rose to fame as an activist in the late 1990s, demonstrating against the mounting repression of Kosovar Albanians by Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbia. Long-haired and grunge-styled, he led student protests at the University of Pristina, worked for the political wing of the Kosovo Liberation Army and was imprisoned by Milosevic’s regime for almost three years.
In the postwar era he turned to criticising the international missions tasked with overseeing Kosovo’s recovery, first the UN and later the EU.
When Kosovo gained its independence in 2008 he criticised that too, refusing to recognise its flag and preferring to appear in
