[7][8][9] Vetëvendosje is currently the largest political party in Kosovo, having won 58 seats in the 2021 Kosovan parliamentary election together with Vjosa Osmani's Guxo!
Vetëvendosje has its roots in the 1997-founded Kosova Action Network (KAN), a grassroots group promoting active citizenry and direct political participation of the masses.
[10][11] KAN was founded in the United States by a group of international activists that supported the 1997 student protests in Kosovo against the occupation of the campus of the University of Pristina by the Yugoslav Police.
[12] On 10 June 2004, KAN activists led by Albin Kurti protested against the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), fiercely criticizing its 'undemocratic' character, due to its lack of accountability to Kosovar citizens.
They attempted to delegitimize UNMIK in front of the people of Kosovo by calling it an undemocratic neo-colonial regime whose employees were unelected but nevertheless took executive decisions.
[14] One protester who was shot next to his heart survived after a long state of coma and had to live with the projectile inside his chest until his natural death in 2020.
He would go on to get re-elected as mayor of Pristina in 2017, before leaving Vetëvendosje soon after elections to join the Social Democratic Party of Kosovo (PSD) in early 2018.
[27] LPK started in 1982 as a Marxist nationalist grouping of Albanian diaspora organizations in Western Europe and is considered the origin of the KLA.
[31][32] Vetëvendosje supports the free market economy with an active role of the state through ownership of key industries, export promotion and import substitution.
Finally, the welfare state is supposed to ensure equality of outcomes, and not just opportunities, which is achieved through progressive taxation and protection of minorities and vulnerable groups.
Vetëvendosje wants to amend Kosovo's constitution and to remove, among others, the parts that derive from the Ahtisaari Plan, UNMIK regulations, and Yugoslav legislation.
The law aims to give the state the means to confiscate wealth whose origin cannot be proven, thus allowing it to combat money laundering and corruption.
[39] In addition, Vetëvendosje strives for Kosovo to have a common currency with Albania by abandoning the euro, and to establish a state-owned development bank.
[42] Vetëvendosje constantly criticized the privatization process in Kosovo, calling it "a corruption model, that contributed to increasing unemployment, ruining the economy, and halting the economic development of the country".
[43] The newly-established Sovereign Wealth Fund will halt the process of privatization and it will manage Kosovo's public assets, collecting dividends from profitable state enterprises and subsidizing the ones that struggle.
When it comes to environmental issues, Vetëvendosje supports green alternatives to energy production despite Kosovo's endowment with large amounts of lignite.
It has vocally opposed the construction of a new coal-powered plant, the Kosova C, and its government refused to connect Kosovo to the Trans Adriatic Gas Pipeline.
Its government coalition contains almost all minority MPs, except the Serb List, which Vetëvendosje considers a tool of Serbia's president Aleksandar Vučić to destabilize Kosovo.
Following the mass resignation of members of the Kosovo Government by the Serb List, Vetëvendosje's Kurti appointed Nenad Rašić as Minister for Communities and Returns.
Its total number of votes increased by over 10% relative to the previous election, but due to a higher participation rate, it received a smaller share of seats in the assembly.
Apart from Veliu's sacking, LDK blamed Vetëvendosje for ruining Kosovo's relations with the US, after Kurti exchanged skirmishes with the US envoy for the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, Richard Grenell.
Vetëvendosje failed to win local assembly seats in the following municipalities: Dragash, Leposavić, Zvečan, Zubin Potok, Novo Brdo, Gračanica, Mamusha, Parteš, Klokot, and North Mitrovica.
The election result was recognized by the US and other Western countries, but groups of local Serbs refused to allow the newly-elected mayors to enter their offices.
Over time, Vetëvendosje has engaged in multiple controversial activities, such as "naming and shaming" of political leaders, damaging property belonging to UNMIK (and later EULEX), campaigning against the consumption of goods imported from Serbia and actively hijacking and demolishing trucks coming from Serbia, throwing paint at politicians, and other similar violent measures.
[109] Vetëvendosje tried to block all entrances to the parliament building, in order to hinder the assembly members from entering, thus preventing the agreement for being ratified.
[110][111] During the protest, U.S. ambassador Tracey Ann Jacobson resulted with an injury on her right arm[112] while entering from a secondary entrance together with some assembly members.
The reaction was prompt, following the US embassy official statement,[115] Vetëvendosje was criticized by Kosovo government instances,[116][117] political factors,[118][119] as well as public opinion.
[122] "As we have stressed with all leaders and particularly to Vetëvendosje, while the United States respects citizens’ rights to free speech and expression, we deplore the use of violent tactics in obstructing the democratic process.
[125] The deputy assistant of Secretary of State in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Philip Reeker, during his visit to Pristina a few days later, was harsh and very direct with Vetëvendosje, calling them "clowns who want to be violent".
[133] Three of Vetëvendosje's own members ran for MPs inside the VLEN Coalition and one of them, Bekim Qoku, managed to get elected into the Assembly of North Macedonia.