Kosovo to hold another parliamentary election amid deadlock over new president

PRISTINA, June 4 – Kosovo will hold a parliamentary election on Sunday, its third in just 18 months, after its political parties failed to reach a compromise on choosing a new president.

The tiny Balkan nation, Europe’s youngest, has aspirations to join the European Union but has had no functioning government for much of the last year as its fractured parliaments failed to elect first a speaker and then a new head of state.

No opinion polls have been conducted recently but analysts predict victory again for Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s Vetevendosje party. However, he will still need to reach a compromise with opposition parties to secure the two-thirds majority required to elect a new president, they say.

Kurti’s party won 51.1% of the vote in the last election in December but could not agree with other parties on a candidate for the largely ceremonial presidency, triggering the dissolution of parliament in April and another snap election.

“We can have 10 rounds of elections, but if there is no political will to sit down and find a deal, there is no solution. I don’t see that will among the parties,” said Eugen Cakolli, a researcher at Kosovo’s Democratic Institute (KDI).

DEADLOCK TO CONTINUE?

Cakolli said Kurti’s party would need to win more than 60% of the vote to secure the election of its preferred candidates for parliamentary speaker and president, adding that this was an unlikely scenario.

“This Sunday’s election may not be the only one this year and holding four rounds within two years would be the worst scenario imaginable,” he added.

The EU has urged politicians in Kosovo – which declared independence from Serbia in 2008 – to create strong institutions that can deliver the reforms needed to join the bloc.

“The EU can support Kosovo, but it cannot do Kosovo’s homework,” European Council President Antonio Costa said during a visit to Pristina on Wednesday.

Kurti’s party first came to power in 2021 with a more nationalist, welfare-focused agenda. Like all parties in Kosovo, it has a pro-Western orientation. It also opposes further concessions to Serbia, with which relations remain strained.

Kosovo’s election commission has said more than 900 candidates from 17 parties and three coalition groups are competing for seats in the 120-seat parliament.

About 2.1 million voters are registered – more than Kosovo’s 1.6 million resident population due to a large diaspora, which is based mostly in western Europe and tends to favour Kurti’s party.

Many Kosovars just want political stability.

“I am tired of voting,” pensioner Sadri Alija said in the capital Pristina. “May Allah unite our politicians – they are only thinking of themselves.” REUTERS