The Kosovo Parliament failed this Tuesday night to elect a new president of the country within the scheduled deadlines and paved the way for new legislative elections, the third in just over a year.
“This session marked the end of the current legislature. The elections will be called within the deadlines set out in the Constitution”, declared the President of Parliament, Albulena Haxhiu, at midnight, after the vote was boycotted by opposition deputies.
The political crisis that has shaken the small country of 1.6 million inhabitants since the parliamentary elections in February 2025 is experiencing a new development.
A voting could not take place due to lack of quorum of two thirds of the deputiesdue to the opposition boycott because theoretically, there was a majority to elect a president.
New government formed in February
After his victory in the December legislative elections, the Prime Minister Albin Kurti formed a new government in Februarybut failed to reach a compromise with the opposition to elect a head of state to succeed Vjosa Osmani, whose term ended in early April.
The president of Kosovo is elected by Parliament for a five-year term. Since the end of Osmani’s term, the interim president has been the speaker of Parliament.
The role of president of Kosovo is largely honorific, but the head of state is the supreme commander of the armed forces and represents the country on the international stage.
Leader of Vetëvendosje (Self-Determination), a formation defending a social policy marked on the left and with a nationalist orientation, Albin Kurti, 51 years old, has been in power since March 2021.
During the afternoon, the leader of the Executive addressed a press conference twice to call on the opposition to “put an end to the blockade” and “present itself to the Assembly”.
“The blockades do not help either the institutions or the State. The blockade of Kosovo leads nowhere,” he said.
Parliament studies new date for elections
The President of Parliament is expected, as of Tuesday morning, to dissolve Parliament and begin consultations to determine a date for new legislative elections.
A Kosovo Constitution Stipulates Haxhiu Can Serve as President interim position for a maximum of six months, but the STF decided, at the end of March, that the election of the new head of state could not be postponed beyond April 28th (Tuesday).
Otherwise, Parliament would have to be dissolved and legislative elections and new elections would have to be held within the next 45 days, most likely on June 7, according to some local media.
Kosovo, a country with an Albanian majority, unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008.
O Nationalist Self-Determination Party led by Prime Minister Albin Kurti won the February 2025 electionsbut as he did not reach a majority, which forced a new election in December last year, in which he won 57 of the 120 seats in Parliament.
Kurti took office as head of the Government for the third time thanks to the support of parliamentarians from the Turkish, Romanian and Bosnian minorities.
But political instability persisted due to the lack consensus on a successor to Osmani.
Some local media outlets meanwhile indicated that Vjosa Osmani intended to form a political party and run in future parliamentary elections.
Kosovo has applied to join the European Union in 2022, but has not yet been admitted as a candidate, with Brussels insisting that the country must improve relations with Serbia, which also aspires to join the European bloc, and reduce tensions with the Serbs in northern Kosovo.
