Prishtina, 2 January 2026
The Caretaker Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, took part in the Commemorative Academy in honour of the former Speaker of the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo and Member of Parliament, Academician Nexhat Daci, held in the Assembly Hall of the Republic of Kosovo.
Full address by Prime Minister Kurti:
Esteemed Daci family,
Esteemed Ms Vjosa Osmani-Sadriu, President of the Republic of Kosovo,
Esteemed Mr Dimal Basha, Speaker of the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo,
Esteemed Mr Fatmir Sejdiu, former President of the Republic of Kosovo,
Esteemed Ms Justina Shiroka-Pula, President of the Kosovo Academy of Sciences and Arts,
Distinguished ambassadors to the Republic of Kosovo,
Distinguished representatives of the state institutions of our country,
Distinguished former Members of Parliament from all legislatures of the Assembly of Kosovo,
Distinguished leaders of political entities,
Distinguished members of the Kosovo Academy of Sciences and Arts,
Ladies and gentlemen,
On the second day of the new year we have just entered, today, on 2 January 2026, a bereavement has brought us together here in the plenary hall of the Assembly of Kosovo. At a transitional moment for the legislative institution of our Republic, with the previous legislature dissolved and the new one not yet elected and consolidated, this loss has drawn us together here in the Assembly of the Republic.
Yesterday, on 1 January 2026, Professor Nexhat Daci passed away at the age of 81. He was a former Speaker of the Assembly of Kosovo and former President of the Kosovo Academy of Sciences and Arts, as well as the founder and leader of the Democratic League of Dardania.
Today, throughout this morning, many citizens paid tribute to Dr Nexhat Daci in the foyer of the Assembly of Kosovo, before we gathered for this commemorative academy Professor Daci’s passing has brought us into this plenary hall and this building because his political career was inextricably linked to this place and to this institution. In the first decade following Kosovo’s liberation, Nexhat Daci served as an elected Member of this legislative Assembly and as its Speaker, namely serving twice as the Speaker of the Assembly of Kosovo: from 2000 to 2004 and from 2004 to 2006.
In Kosovo that had just been liberated in 1999, when the foundations of a new political and value-based order toward democracy and statehood were being laid, and when the rules of public discourse were changing above all else, Nexhat Daci, as Speaker, was entrusted with steering debate in the Assembly of Kosovo. With his trademark maturity and calm, he set the standard for how deliberations should be conducted in this Assembly and how political battles should be waged from its rostrum and benches.
As a Member of the Assembly of Kosovo, on 17 February 2008, Nexhat Daci was among the signatories of Kosovo’s Declaration of Independence; by affixing his signature to that historic document, he secured his place in the annals of the founding and rise of the Republic of Kosovo.
Yet beyond his political engagement, Professor Nexhat Daci came into Kosovo’s public life from the academic sphere, specifically from the University of Prishtina, where he was among the first members of the academic staff, teaching in the field of chemistry. It appears that his background as a chemist also shaped his meticulous calibration, down to the smallest measure, of every word and every public act, a trait for which he has remained etched in the collective memory of our citizens. As a politician, Nexhat Daci knew how to play the role of a balancing figure between opposing poles, and on Kosovo’s political stage before and in the early years after independence, he represented the very antithesis of polarization.
As a scientist of chemistry, Dr Nexhat Daci was original and tireless in his research, leaving behind a substantial body of scholarly works from his long career as a professor at the University of Prishtina. His academic standing was crowned by his membership in the Kosovo Academy of Sciences and Arts and by serving twice as its President, from 1999 to 2004 and again from 2018 to 2019.
As of yesterday, Professor Nexhat Daci has departed from us in physical terms, yet he will remain among us, as a man through the generations of his family; as a scholar in the memory of his former students and fellow chemists and academics; and as a point of reference in political discourse for his career and his state-building legacy.
With his stature as a statesman and his profile as a scientist, Professor Nexhat Daci will endure as a voice in his own right in the political history of Kosovo’s statehood and in the history of education and science in Kosovo. Nexhat Daci was a scientist before he became an intellectual, an intellectual before he became a politician, and a leader of state institutions before he became the head of a political party.
In closing this commemorative address for Professor Nexhat Daci, I invite each of you to accept my condolences for Professor Daci. My condolences to the Daci family and to all the relatives of the late Nexhat Daci. My condolences to his colleagues at the Academy of Sciences and the University of Prishtina. And my condolences to his associates and friends from all walks of life. May he be remembered for his contributions to the people of Kosovo.
Thank you.
