Kosovo on Verge of Snap Elections

(MENAFN) Kosovo's parliament failed to elect a new head of state before a constitutionally mandated midnight deadline on Tuesday, pushing the country to the brink of its second snap election in a matter of months.

The Kosovo Assembly convened four separate times throughout the day but fell critically short of the votes needed to install a new president. Only lawmakers from the ruling Self-Determination Movement and representatives of non-Serb minority communities participated in the balloting — their combined 64 votes far below the two-thirds supermajority of 80 required from the chamber's 120 seats.

Assembly Speaker and Acting President Albulena Haxhiu confirmed that opposition parties had been formally invited to take part but declined to attend. Both the Democratic Party of Kosovo and the Democratic League of Kosovo boycotted all four sessions, effectively sealing the deadlock.

In the coming days, Haxhiu is expected to formally announce early parliamentary elections, which under Kosovo's Constitution must be held within 45 days of the failed vote.

A Country Returning to the Polls
Should elections be called, Kosovo's voters would head to the polls for the second time in under five months — following the Dec. 28 general election that had only recently reshuffled the political landscape.

The crisis traces back to April 4, when the term of former President Vjosa Osmani expired. In the months prior, Osmani had publicly signaled her intention to seek a second term. However, Prime Minister Albin Kurti's Self-Determination Movement — the same party that had backed her original rise to the presidency — broke ranks and put forward two candidates of its own: Foreign Minister Glauk Konjufca and MP Fatmire Mulhaxha Kollcaku.

Constitutional Court Intervention Bought Time — Now Exhausted
The current impasse is not Kosovo's first brush with institutional crisis over the presidency. On March 5, following an earlier failure by the Assembly to elect a successor, Osmani dissolved parliament entirely. The Constitutional Court subsequently overturned that decision and granted lawmakers an additional 34 days to resolve the deadlock — issuing a stark warning that fresh elections would be unavoidable if no president was chosen by April 28.

That deadline has now passed without resolution, leaving Kosovo with no clear path forward except the ballot box.

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