Justina Shiroka-Pula is the name that, according to the proposal of Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti, has been placed at the center of discussion for the post of the country’s president. Her profile brings together academia, institutions and politics, with a career spanning from the university to the executive and the Assembly of Kosovo.
From economics to heading ASHAK
Shiroka-Pula is an economist and academic. In 2025, she was elected president of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo, becoming the first woman to lead the institution, which was founded in 1975.
In this role, she succeeded academic Mehmet Kraja, taking over an institution with significant weight in Kosovo’s academic and public life.
University education and academic activity
She completed her primary and secondary education in Prishtina, while in 1976 she graduated from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Prishtina.
She completed postgraduate studies in the theory and policy of economic development in 1984 at the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the University of Zagreb. She later earned her doctorate at the University of Prishtina with the thesis “Demographic Investments and the Economic Development of Kosovo.”
According to the biography published by ASHAK, she also pursued postdoctoral studies at the University of Linz in Austria and at the University of Arizona in the United States, as well as professional training at various international universities.
Professional career and post-war engagement
She began her career at the People’s Bank of Kosovo, while from 1978 she worked as a lecturer at the Faculty of Economics.
After the war, she was also engaged in civil society, mainly on issues related to women’s empowerment, gender equality, business development and entrepreneurship.
The political part of her profile
In politics, Shiroka-Pula served as Kosovo’s minister of Energy and Mining from 2008 to 2011.
Later, from 2011 to 2014, she was a member of the Assembly of Kosovo. This political component of her profile makes the candidacy more than a purely academic choice, in a process where the selection of the head of state always remains also a matter of political balance.
Her name has now been put on the table by Albin Kurti for the post of president of the Republic of Kosovo, as part of efforts to elect the new head of state.
It remains to be seen how much political support this candidacy will generate beyond her institutional and academic profile.