Barely hours after returning home, Mr Ibrahim Rugova, the self-styled president of Kosovo, has left again for Italy, stunning his dwindling band of supporters and infuriating the territory's new United Nations administrator, Mr Bernard Kouchner.
His unexpected departure put a cloud over the first session of the UN-appointed Kosovo Transitional Council. The UN had delayed the session by several days to allow Mr Rugova to attend, but he instructed his party, the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), to boycott it.
The council, which includes Serbian and Albanian representatives, is meant to act as an advisory body in the struggle to restore law and order and reintegrate the running of health, education, and local government.
Mr Rugova left Kosovo shortly after flying back to a warm welcome from a small group of followers in the main street of the capital, Pristina.
Mr Kouchner said Mr Rugova was "unhappy about the current composition of the council".
But the outgoing UN administrator, Mr Sergio Vieira de Mello, had used the model of the Albanian delegation at the Paris peace talks earlier this year. At that time, Mr Rugova not only agreed not to lead the team, but accepted that Kosovo should have a provisional government headed by the KLA. The UN refuses to recognise either the KLA-led government or Mr Rugova's "presidency".
During NATO's air strikes, Mr Rugova was put under house arrest in Pristina by the Serbs but he surprised his compatriots by issuing a statement with the Yugoslav president, Mr Slobodan Milosevic, criticising the bombing.
Mr Rugova's decision to come home a month late, and leave again within hours, underlines the LDK's weakness after its vice-president Fehmi Agani was murdered by Serb forces in April. He was the driving force behind the LDK and the only man able to forge strong links with the KLA.
In spite of Mr Rugova's disappearance, the UN scored one success yesterday, when the Serb members of the council dropped their own boycott threat and turned up to the session.