Kosovo’s parliament failed to elect a new head of state again on Tuesday, which means that the country will hold another early election. Since last February, Kosovans will go to the ballot boxes for the third time, reports AFP, writes TASR.
- The Kosovo parliament failed to elect a new head of state, there will be early elections.
- The Speaker of the Parliament, Albulena Haxhiu, announced the end of the electoral period and the elections.
- The opposition blockade made it impossible to achieve the two-thirds majority needed to elect the president.
- The Constitutional Court annulled President Osmani’s decree on the dissolution of parliament as invalid.
- Uncertainty in Kosovo postpones negotiations with Serbia, crucial for joining the European Union.
“This session marked the end of this electoral period. Elections will be declared within the constitutional period of 45 days,” the speaker of the parliament, Albulena Haxhiuová, who already took over the powers of the president at the beginning of April, told the legislators.
Parliament, which has been sitting almost non-stop for the past few days, ended its session shortly before midnight on Tuesday, when the deadline for electing a new president expired, leading the country to early elections.
Despite that in both last year’s parliamentary elections, the centre-left party Self-Determination (Vetëvendosje – LVV) of Prime Minister Albin Kurti won she did not have a majority in the deadlocked legislature and was therefore unable to fill the highest positions.
The opposition also boycotted the last session, and only deputies from the ruling LVV party and representatives of minorities were present in the meeting hall. However, this was not enough to achieve the necessary two-thirds majority to allow a vote on a presidential candidate. Prime Minister Albin Kurti hosted on Tuesday two press conferences where he called on the opposition to “end the blockade” and attended the meeting. “We do not help institutions or the state with blockades,” he emphasized.
President Vjosa Osmaniová already dissolved the parliament at the beginning of March after the deputies they were unable to agree on a new head of state within the deadline set by the constitution. However, its decree was later annulled by the Constitutional Court, thereby upholding Prime Minister Kurti’s objection.
Osmania’s five-year term ended on April 4. Even though, according to the constitution, Haxhiuová could hold the position of temporary head of state for half a year, at the end of March the Constitutional Court determined for deputies, the deadline for electing a new president is April 28.
The last early elections in Kosovo were held last December 28, after unsuccessful efforts to form a government following the February vote of the same year. The whole process also postpones negotiations with Serbia, which, like Slovakia, never recognized the independence of Kosovo declared in 2008. This is a key condition for the ambitions of both countries to join the European Union.
