"Donika Gërvalla, the next president of Kosovo?!"is the title of an article published by the media"botasot.info" on July 17.
The article contains an image showing Gërvalla and next to it the text "Kosovo Presidency".
What's wrong with the title?
While the general title leaves room for interpretation as to whether this issue has been raised in higher decision-making instances for this process, the article indicates that Gërvalla's name was mentioned by a publicist.
Head of the article:
"Publicist Idriz Zeqiraj believes that Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Donika Gërvalla, would be a worthy choice for the position of President of the Republic of Kosovo."
Using question marks and exclamation marks at the end
The question mark and exclamation mark are used at the end of the title. In the title under consideration, the question is combined with surprise, disbelief, irony or indignation. In theory, something like this is known as a form of “interrobang” as something that aims to combine emotions, disbelief and bewilderment in the form of a question (see here).
The failure to mention the name of the person who declared in the title that "Gërvalla would be a worthy choice for president" and the illustrative image, may encourage misinterpretations as to whether such an issue has been raised in decision-making instances in this regard or is simply someone's opinion. This is confirmed by several comments on the "Bota Sot" post on Facebook.
The same title has also been used by other Facebook pages, which have also added the word "Exclusive" to present it in a more appealing way. sensational (see here, here and here).
Hibrid.info has in several cases dealt with headlines that opinions present as news (see here, here and here).
Context for the post of president
Because of failure of electing a president within the constitutional deadlines, Kosovo underwent new parliamentary elections on June 7.
After the certification of the results, the constitutional deadlines for the constitution of the Assembly and the election of the new compositions of the institutions - the Government and the President - have begun.
According to the Constitution, the constitutive session must be held within 30 days from the day of the official announcement of the election results (Article 66). The results were certified on July 8.
The Constitution states that the Assembly may be dissolved if, within 60 days from the date of the start of the election procedure, the President of the Republic is not elected (no 82.3).
How is the president elected?
The President as head of state is elected by the Assembly by secret ballot (no 86).
To be nominated as a candidate, the signatures of at least 30 deputies are required, who are only entitled to sign for one candidate.
The election is held with two-thirds of the votes of all deputies. If in the first two rounds no candidate receives 2/3 of the votes, a third round is organized between the two most voted candidates in the second round and the most voted candidate who receives the majority of the votes of all deputies (61) is elected president.
So far, Gërvalla's name has not been mentioned in any credible report as a proposed name for president (see here).
Analyze:
The headline "Donika Gërvalla the next president of Kosovo?!" presents as a real possibility a claim that is based solely on the assessment of a publicist.
The article does not clarify in the title that it is a statement by a publicist, leaving room for misinterpretation that Gërvalla's name was proposed in official instances for this position.
The misinterpretation is also confirmed by some commentators on social media.
Based on the working methodology, Hibrid.info evaluates the title formulated in this way as "Clickbait".
Reasoning:
“Clickbait” is considered to be informational content whose title is general and does not disclose the location of the event, context and relevance. Such texts and articles aim to attract the attention of the audience with sensational headlines with misleading consequences, which do not accurately clarify the content of the article. “Clickbait” headlines are mainly made to attract readability in the case of media publications and/or to earn from clicks in the case of commercial publications.