Kosovo - Election - 14 February 2021
Kosovo is a parliamentary democracy. The constitution and laws provide for an elected unicameral parliament, the Assembly, which in turn elects a president, whose choice of prime minister the Assembly must approve. Civilian authorities maintained effective control of the security forces.
Human rights issues included refoulement; endemic government corruption; crimes involving violence or threats of violence against journalists; and attacks against members of ethnic minorities or other marginalized communities, including by security forces. The government sometimes took steps to prosecute and punish officials who committed abuses in the security services or elsewhere in the government. Many in the government, the opposition, civil society, and the media believed that senior officials engaged in corruption with impunity.
National unity has unraveled since the country declared independence in 2008. Kosovo's present conditions are bleak: Ethnic disputes remain unresolved, crimes committed during the 1990s war remain unprosecuted, and there are serious corruption, extreme poverty and mass emigration to deal with.
Kurti’s government, which came to power in February 2020, marked a certain break with the established ideology, policies and trends that have dominated the political scene in the country since 1999. It was a government with a leftist, progressive programme, focusing on social-economic issues and anti-corruption efforts. Because of that, Kurti’s government was perceived as a threat by big capital and the old elite. The fact that they saw his modest social-democratic policies as unacceptable shows just how far to the right these political agents have moved. In March 2020, under pressure from the Trump administration, the coalition government of Albin Kurti’s Movement for Self-Determination (LVV) in Kosovo collapsed in what some have seen as a political coup. United States President Donald Trump was running for re-election and he badly needed easy “diplomatic wins” to brag about at his campaign rallies. Kurti happened to be in the way of one of them. The Trump administration wanted Kosovo and Serbia to sign a “peace deal”, although the two countries were not at war. Kurti opposed such a meaningless diplomatic exercise. So with the help of Kosovo’s old political and economic elite, Special US Envoy for Serbia and Kosovo, Richard Grenell, put immense pressure on LVV’s junior coalition partner, the right-wing Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), which withdrew its support for the government.
Kosovo’s parliament toppled the country's government in a 25 March 2020 no-confidence vote, throwing the Western Balkan nation into political turmoil even as it struggled along with the rest of the world to battle the coronavirus epidemic. The parliament voted 82 in favor of the no-confidence motion, 32 against, with one abstention. The motion was called by the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) -- a partner in Prime Minister Abvin Kurti’s government. Even though a member of Kosovo’s ruling coalition, the LDK as opposed many of the prime minister's polices, including matters regarding the fight against the coronavirus and the imposition of 100 percent tariffs on goods from neighboring Serbia. The next step was uncertain. In normal circumstances, a snap election could be held, but that was unlikely amid the battle to stem the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
Avdullah Hoti, a leading official in Kosovo's center-right Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), became prime minister on 03 June 2020 after winning a vote in parliament by a razor-thin margin. His election ended a months-long crisis triggered by outgoing premier Albin Kurti's Vetevendosje party, which had been pressing for snap polls after his government collapsed in March following a no-confidence vote initiated by LDK. A key point of contention with LDK was Kurti's policy in relation to Serbia. Kurti was reluctant to scrap trade sanctions against Serbia in spite of EU criticism and requests from Pristina's most important ally, the United States. Three days after taking office, Hoti's government lifted the sanctions on Serbian goods entering the country in an effort to pave the way to resuming dialogue to improve ties with its neighbor.
LDK’s Avdullah Hoti formed a new coalition government and three months later he, along with Serbian President Aleksander Vucic, was at the White House, signing what Trump repeatedly called a “peace deal”, but what in reality was a letter of intent on a few economic issues, relations with Israel and the designation of Hezbollah as a “terrorist” organisation. Trump used the “peace deal” in his campaign, falsely claiming that he put a stop to Albanians and Serbs killing each other. His administration clearly had no consideration for history, truth or democracy. It willingly helped bring down a democratically elected government so that it could push for a deal between Kosovo and Serbia that was no more than a photo op for Trump ahead of the US elections.
The government led by the centre-right Democratic League of Kosovo was elected by 61 deputies in the Balkan country’s 120-seat parliament after weeks of legal wrangling following the dismissal of the previous government.
Ex-Prime Minister Albin Kurti, whose administration had lost the no-confidence vote, filed a complaint to the Constitutional Court demanding its ruling on whether the Hoti government was elected legally. Kurti had argued that the decisive vote of legislator Etem Arifi, leader of a Roma minority party, was illegal because he had already been convicted of fraud. Arifi was sentenced to 15 months’ jail in August 2019 for illegally using 26,000 euros ($31,800) of public money given to an NGO for personal profit. Nevertheless, he ran for the new parliament in October last year and was automatically elected to the parliament.
Kosovo’s highest court ruled 21 December 2020 that the country must hold a fresh general election after the parliamentary confirmation of its new government earlier in 2020 was declared illegal. The Constitutional Court of Kosovo said the election of the government of Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti was invalid because the June 2020 parliamentary confirmation of his administration was passed with a vote by a legislator who has since been jailed. Early elections had become routine in Kosovo, wearying a public that has low faith in a political class that seems to lurch between crises. Since the former Serbian province declared independence in 2008, which Serbia refuses to recognise, not a single government has finished its full term.
For most of the past decade, Kosovo has been run by the former commanders who led the late 1990s rebellion against Serb forces. If they were once feted as independence heroes, the political elite had become the face of the social and economic ills plaguing the population of 1.8 million, where average salaries are around 500 euros (around $600) a month and youth unemployment tops 50 percent.
Kosovars braved freezing temperatures and the coronavirus pandemic to pick their next parliament 14 February 2021. Some 1.8 million people were eligible to vote in the election. An additional 100,000 diaspora Kosovars were eligible to vote by post. The election was held to pick 120 lawmakers from among more than 1,000 candidates from 28 political groupings. Kosovo's Serbian minority has 10 seats. A further 10 others are allocated to other minorities. Voters infected by the coronavirus were able to cast their ballot through mobile polling teams. The European Union sent an Elections Expert Mission to Kosovo to monitor the vote. Tensions over Kosovo remain a source of volatility in the Balkans. Negotiations on normalizing ties with Serbia have not featured highly on any party's campaign agenda. Talks, brokered by the US and the European Union, stalled again in 2020.
The anti-establishment Vetevendosje (Self-Determination) party was projected to win the largest share of the vote. Partial results placed Kosovo's left-wing Vetevendosje (Self-Determination) party ahead of its rivals following the vote, which was the second parliamentary election in 18 months. The anti-establishment party gleaned about 48% of the vote, with some 80% of the ballots having been already counted, according to the Central Election Commission.
The long-time ruling Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) was projected to receive around 17% of the vote, and the conservative Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) 13%. Following the LDK's disappointing showing at the polls, Mustafa announced his resignation on February 15. "This is a bad result," Mustafa told a news conference in Pristina. "Soon, the LDK assembly will elect a new chairman," Mustafa added.
The PDK was led by former foreign minister Enver Hoxhaj, after its two top officials, ex-president Hashim Thaci and his close aide Kadri Veseli had to face war crimes charges in The Hague. Commenting on the outcome, Hoxhaj said that his party will not be part of a new, Vetevendosje-led government. "The results put Vetevendosje first, it's a clear message, and we, the PDK, have accepted this," he said.
Acting Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti from the LDK party said that the outcome of the vote was different than expected. "As the acting prime minister, I will do to everything to ensure a normal handover of power," he said.
Vetevendosje — an anti-establishment protest movement turned political party – was led by 45-year-old former political prisoner Albin Kurti. It campaigned on an anti-corruption platform. It accuses traditional elites of squandering Kosovo's first years of independence with graft and mismanagement. The party had finished first in the previous two elections but both times it was eventually outmaneuvered by other parties who united to form majority coalitions.
The stronger showing this time has been attributed in part to Kurti's new alliance with acting President Vjosa Osmani, 38, who recently left the LDK to join Kurti, turning the two into charismatic duo on the campaign trail. Once known for provocative stunts such as unleashing tear gas in parliament, Vetevendosje began as a street movement in the 2000s protesting against local elites and international influence in Kosovo, which was a UN-protectorate after the war. It entered electoral politics in 2011 and has tamped down its more radical antics in recent years.
The triumph nearly doubled the party's last electoral showing in 2019, reflecting a hunger for new leadership in troubled Kosovo. "This great victory is an opportunity to start the changes we want," the party's firebrand leader Albin Kurti, long a thorn in the establishment's side, said in a victory speech. "The election was indeed a referendum on justice and employment and against corruption and state capture," the 45-year-old added, while warning of "many obstacles" ahead.
While Kurti himself did not run as an MP – he was banned due to a 2018 court conviction for unleashing tear gas in parliament -- his party can still appoint him as their prime minister. Known for a hardline stance on relations with Serbia, he would face heavy pressure from the West to reboot talks with the northern neighbour, which still denies Kosovo's statehood. Rivals attacked Kurti -- who enjoys great devotion among fans -- of preparing "a dictatorship" that could threaten Kosovo's important alliance with the US. Kurti, long a thorn in the establishment's side, was particularly popular among young people who feel betrayed by their current leadership.
The diaspora has tended to lean heavily towards supporting the LVV party. Thousands of Albanian voters from Switzerland and Germany, which host the largest diaspora communities, descended on Kosovo to make sure that their voice was heard.
LVV’s landslide victory was the biggest since the country’s liberation in 1999, surpassing even the country’s founder, Ibrahim Rugova, who achieved just over 45 percent of the vote in the early 2000s. This will lead to a complete realignment in Kosovo's political scene, with a stark warning for the country’s two establishment parties who are trailing in second and third position on 17 percent and 13 percent, reform or be relegated to the wilderness for a long time.
Kosovo’s parliament failed to confirm a new president 03 April 2021, despite backing from the leftist movement Vetevendosje, the reformist camp that swept the elections, with politicians resuming the vote Sunday after a night of deadlock. The election of Kurti’s candidate — law professor Vjosa Osmani — failed to take place after the opposition and Serbian minority boycotted the vote leaving the prime minister and his candidate short of the 80 out of 160 members of parliament or MPs needed. With 71 votes, on 04 April 2021 Osmani was elected on the third ballot. Eighty-two deputies participated in the voting, but 11 ballots were disqualified. Osmani's opponent, Nasuf Bejta, did not secure any votes. Under the constitution, if parliament had failed to elect a president by April 5, snap parliamentary elections would automatically have been called within 45 days.
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