Wrote: Etrit Rexhepi
Acting Minister of Finance, Hekuran Murati, on Thursday (June 26), through a posting on his official Facebook account, he reacted to the article published by hibrid.info, titled "Minister Murati's statement that the opposition refused to vote on the 90 million euro loan agreement is not entirely accurate.".
In his reaction, Murat says: "The author reached this conclusion by using the logical fallacy known in debates as the 'straw man fallacy'.". Also, in this post, he claims that the political leanings of the author of the article published on hibrid.info are clearly visible, "to exonerate LDK as the subject in this case, because the quorum that day was prevented by LDK".
What's wrong with the incumbent minister's claims?
Murat's claims about the analysis do not hold up, because he claims to have intentionally distorted his position, while the analysis does not attribute to him having said "the opposition voted against", but argues precisely that his generalization about the "opposition's rejection" is incorrect and invalid in the factual context of the vote. Also, the acting minister does not present any consistent facts that would support the claim that the author displays political bias in his article published by hibrid.info.
What is the "Straw man fallacy" and why does Murat's claim about it not hold up?
“When a person misrepresents an argument, theory, or claim, and then, on the basis of that misrepresentation, claims to have rejected the position he has misinterpreted.” (see here)
Murati stated that the text claimed that he said that the opposition voted against, while he states that he stated that the opposition refused to vote.
Hibrid.info has correctly quoted Murat's statement and does not claim that he assessed the opposition's "vote against" as a "vote against", but emphasizes the fact that he assessed the opposition in a generalized manner. In the hibrid.info article, it is noted that in the vote to which it referred, PDK and AAK voted in favor, and only LDK did not participate in the vote.
The hibrid.info article concludes that "The statement that the opposition parties refused to vote is not true. This is because the agreement was not ratified due to the lack of a quorum, not because of a vote against.
"Voting against"In this case, the context was used to explain. The use of the phrase "does not hold true" for Murat's statement was related to the generalization of blame towards the opposition, not to a direct distortion of his words.
Further, in his reaction Murati writes "Another thing that the author has done wrong regarding the refusal of other parties to vote, is the assessment made based on a single session, when it is known that the agreement in question was repeated on the agenda several times in a row until the end of the legislature, and the opposition MPs had more than one opportunity to vote and pass this agreement, but they did not do so.
The fact that the analysis focuses on the session of May 23, 2024, when the draft law in question was considered for a vote, does not make it inaccurate. Hibrid.info has researched and found that this draft law was on the agenda of the plenary meetings of the Assembly of Kosovo, held on June 27 and July 11, 2024, where from the transcripts (see here) for these dates it does not appear that the agreement was put to a vote. In August the Assembly did not hold a meeting, while in the meetings held on 12 and 26 September (in this meeting only 71 deputies participated in the vote) and 10 and 30 October, it is indicated that the same failed to be voted on due to lack of quorum (see here). While in December, when the last meetings were held, this agreement was not put to a vote (see here).
From the video of the session held on September 26, 2024, during the moment of this vote, it is noticeable the absence (the reasons for which are difficult to ascertain) of some of the deputies from the opposition parties of the previous legislature in this session.
But, from what can be seen, it can be assessed that there was no refusal to vote by the present MPs of the opposition parliamentary groups. This is because 69 MPs out of 71 who were present voted in favor. (see here).
The acting minister's claim of political bias in the hibrid.info article
Another claim by Murat, mentioned in his status, is that the author of this text exonerates the LDK and, according to him, this exoneration constitutes a clear political bias in the article.
Hibrid.info does not exclude LDK's responsibility in the article, but correctly documents that LDK did not participate in the vote. The suggestion that the analysis "exonerates LDK" and politically biased, is a subjective assessment of his, presented without any facts. Given that the total number of people present in the hall was known, but not the distribution by political parties and considering that not all deputies of Albanian parties were present, hibrid.info has assessed that it was impossible to accurately determine the responsibility of each party for the lack of quorum in this case.
Analyze:
Murat's claims of political bias and the author's deliberate distortion of his position in the analysis of one of his statements, using the logical deception trick known as the "straw man fallacy", do not hold up.
The analysis does not attribute to him having said "the opposition voted against", but argues precisely that his generalization about the "opposition's rejection" is incorrect and invalid in the factual context of the vote. Also, the acting minister does not present any consistent facts that would support the claim that the author displays political bias in his article published by hibrid.info.
Based on the working methodology, hibrid.info evaluates these claims as "Conspiracy Theory".
Reasoning:
"Conspiracy theories" are considered to be informational content that contains a false or unverifiable description of a phenomenon, event or person, presenting it as part or the result of a secret plan ("conspiracy"). The characteristic of these contents is that they present a series of claims, presented as facts, between which cause-effect relationships are established, without providing any reliable evidence.