After months of deadlock, Kosovo’s parliament has elected a new speaker, it was confirmed on Wednesday, August 27.
Previously, inconclusive February election results saw the legislative assembly preventing outgoing prime minister, Albin Kurti, from forming a new government. It took more than 50 votes for representatives to agree on Kurti’s Vetevendosje (‘Self-Determination Movement’) party colleague Dimal Basha, who received a majority with 73 votes (out of a maximum 120).
Having got over this constitutional hurdle, the parliament is now looking to elect five deputy speakers. The clock is already ticking on this, as Kurti has just two weeks to cement a new government—which includes securing the agreement of political parties representing non-Albanian minorities—or the president has the power to invite another party to form a government.
Basha, the fifth Vetevendosje candidate for speaker to be put forward, declared:
I call for cooperation and unification. It is time to prove that despite political differences, we have the courage and wisdom to work together for the future of our country.
His government now faces the task of appointing one of the five speakers acceptable to the ethnically Serbian population in the north of Kosovo: the position of one deputy speaker from the Serb community is guaranteed by the constitution of the nascent European state.
