Justina Shiroka-Pula has been elected President of the Republic of Kosovo.
A total of 81 MPs voted in favor, with two invalid ballots and one vote cast for Eliza Hoxha.
Shiroka-Pula is an economist and academic who, before being elected head of state, held various institutional and political positions.
In 2025, she was elected president of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo (ASHAK), becoming the first woman to lead the institution, which was established in 1975. She succeeded academician Mehmet Kraja.
Shiroka-Pula completed her primary and secondary education in Prishtina and graduated from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Prishtina in 1976.
She completed postgraduate studies in the field of economic development theory and policy in 1984 at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Zagreb.
She earned her PhD from the University of Prishtina with a dissertation titled “Demographic Investments and the Economic Development of Kosovo.”
Shiroka-Pula began her professional career at the People’s Bank of Kosovo and, in 1978, began working as a lecturer at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Prishtina.
According to her biography published by ASHAK, she also completed postdoctoral studies at the University of Linz in Austria and the University of Arizona in the United States, as well as various professional training programs at international universities.
After the end of the war in Kosovo, Shiroka-Pula also became involved in civil society, focusing on women’s empowerment, gender equality, business development and entrepreneurship.
She also has a political career. From 2008 to 2011, she served as Kosovo’s Minister of Energy and Mining, while from 2011 to 2014 she served as a member of the Kosovo Assembly.
With her election as president, Shiroka-Pula assumes the responsibility of leading the state at an important political period for Kosovo.
She becomes the new President of the Republic of Kosovo, succeeding President Vjosa Osmani.
