PROFILE: From rebel "Snake" to Prime Minister Thaci

Nov 18, 2007, 11:55 GMT

Pristina - The former rebel leader Hashim Thaci on Saturday won parliamentary elections in the province on a promise of independence made to his compatriots, the majority Kosovo Albanians.

Thaci, 39, was an ardent supporter of Kosovo's independence even as a history student in Pristina and an emigrant to Switzerland in the early 1990s, where he joined the Albanian political network.

According to Serbian sources, he passed military training in Albania in 1993 and has been one of the founding members and commanders of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army UCK, under the nom de guerre 'Snake' that same year.

Other sources say that he was in charge of securing financing, recruiting and armament for UCK. Serbia sentenced him to 10 years in prison and has placed an international arrest warrant on him in connection with the 1993 killing of three police officers in Kosovo.

He was detained once, in 2003 in Hungary, on a Yugoslav arrest warrant, but was quickly released after UN authorities in Kosovo intervened. At the time, he was already the opposition leader in the province.

Thaci was named the political leader of UCK in 1999 and he took part in the Kosovo peace talks in Rambouillet, France, which collapsed and failed to avert a crackdown on Albanians in Kosovo and a NATO intervention against Yugoslavia.

While the war in Kosovo raged, mostly Albanians proclaimed Thaci prime minister in exile of the province.

He emerged as a full-fledged political leader, heading his own Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), after NATO ousted Serbian security forces from Kosovo in mid-1999, paving the way for a UN administration that has governed it since.

The PDK is considered the successor of UCK's political structures.

In Saturday's elections, he and PDK broke the previously undisputed hold of the rival Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) on power. LDK was weakened by the death of its iconic leader Ibrahim Rugova in 2006 and by the unfulfilled promise of quick independence.

Thaci, who was among the first to turn his back on Rugova's more moderate views, has as a politician relentlessly pushed for Kosovo's independence and was the mover of initiatives for the transfer of more authority from the UN to provincial authorities.

Though the differences among Kosovo Albanian politicians in terms of foreign policy are minimal, Thaci is widely considered the 'US man' in Pristina, owing to his close ties with Washington officials since the days of Rambouillet.

Immediately after declaring election victory early Sunday morning, Thaci repeated his promise of independence to the Albanians, who make up 90 per cent of the 2.1 million Kosovars.

'A new era is starting. The citizens of Kosovo have sent a message to the world that we are a democratic country and society,' Thaci said. 'But the strongest message was that Kosovo is ready for its independence and its freedom.'

He also stretched a hand out to the Serbs, who comprehensively boycotted the elections in protest at Kosovo's slide to independence, and who are in the near future certain not to take the hand offered by Thaci or any other Albanian leader.

'I want to address this message and tell those who didn't vote for us, that I will be a prime minister of everyone, working for the welfare of everyone,' Thaci said. 'I will also be the prime minister of the minorities.'