Kosovo Assembly Falls Short by 64 Votes Before Deadline
kosovo’s Assembly failed to elect a new president by the constitutional midnight Tuesday deadline after 64 votes fell short of the required two-thirds majority in the 120-seat chamber. Only lawmakers from Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s Self-Determination Movement and non-Serb minorities took part in the vote.
That leaves Albulena Haxhiu, the Assembly speaker and acting president, expected to call early parliamentary elections in the coming days. Under Kosovo’s Constitution, those elections must be held within 45 days.
Haxhiu cites opposition refusal
Haxhiu said that invitations had been extended to opposition parties, including the Democratic Party of Kosovo and the Democratic League of Kosovo, but that they had refused to participate in the sessions. Her account sets out the immediate reason the vote stalled: the chamber did not bring together the numbers needed for a head of state.
The Assembly met four times during the day and still did not produce the 80 votes needed for the office. The 64 votes cast were not enough, and the constitutional deadline passed without a successor to former President Vjosa Osmani.
Osmani, Kurti and the court clock
Osmani’s term expired on April 4, after she had already dissolved parliament on March 5 when lawmakers first failed to elect a successor. The Constitutional Court then overturned that move and gave lawmakers an additional 34 days to choose a new head of state, warning that fresh elections would be unavoidable if no president was chosen by April 28.
Kurti’s Self-Determination Movement put forward Foreign Minister Glauk Konjufca and MP Fatmire Mulhaxha Kollcaku as nominees, but the vote never reached the threshold. That leaves the presidency unresolved and shifts the immediate burden to the next parliamentary contest rather than a new round of negotiations in the chamber.
Second vote after Dec. 28
The failure pushes Kosovo toward the second time voters may return to the polls just months after the Dec. 28 election. For voters, the practical consequence is that the country is now moving into an accelerated campaign period instead of a settled handover in the Assembly.
The next step belongs to Haxhiu, who is expected to set early parliamentary elections in motion in the coming days. If that happens, the constitutional 45-day clock will define the pace of the next phase, not the lost presidential vote.
