Lumir Abdixhiku, leader of the Democratic League of Kosovo, said his party is withdrawing all claims to leading the Assembly, the presidency and participation in the government, leaving the Vetëvendosje Movement the opportunity to hold all these positions. Political analyst Artan Muhaxhiri, however, believes the LDK leader’s proposal does not offer a realistic and normal way out of the political crisis.
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At a press conference, Abdixhiku said that since LVV does not see the LDK as a necessary partner, it will not have the party as a mere prop for its government either. According to him, the LDK will remain in opposition and fulfill this responsibility with dignity.
Despite this position, he said his party would take part in the process of electing the president, but had set conditions regarding the country’s next head of state.
Abdixhiku stressed that the new president must be a defender of the Republic and the constitutional order.
According to him, LVV now has two options: ensure stability through the joint election of the president or lead the country into another crisis. He accused Albin Kurti’s Vetëvendosje Movement of refusing even a “minimal compromise.”
The LDK leader said his party would take part in the election of the president, as its absence from the vote would send the country to elections. He argued that the president “cannot be elected” with LVV’s 61 votes alone.
Abdixhiku called for a nonpartisan figure who serves the Republic to be appointed head of state, rather than a “karate president.” He warned that party-affiliated candidates would not be accepted.
Describing unilateral proposals as unacceptable, he said the presidential candidate should be determined only after detailed discussions among the parties.
The LDK was the only political party that agreed to enter negotiations with LVV, which emerged victorious in the June elections.
However, several meetings between Albin Kurti and Lumir Abdixhiku failed to produce an agreement.
According to Abdixhiku, Kurti had offered him the position of deputy prime minister and three ministries, but the offer was rejected. He said the LDK’s demands had included the presidency and participation in the executive branch.
Abdixhiku reiterated that if LVV does not consider the LDK necessary as a partner, it cannot use the party as a mere prop for its government either.
He called for the Assembly to be constituted immediately and for LVV to proceed with forming the new government.
Kosovo has been caught in a new institutional deadlock since the June 7 snap elections.
The process of constituting the Assembly has not yet been completed, although the 30-day deadline expired on August 7.
The Vetëvendosje Movement is seeking a political agreement before the Assembly session resumes, with particular emphasis on the election of the next president. The Democratic Party of Kosovo and the Alliance, on the other hand, want the constitution of the Assembly not to be linked to the issue of the head of state.
Kurti has insisted that the next president must be a nonpartisan figure who is acceptable by consensus.
It was precisely the disagreements over the president that led to the June elections, after the parties failed to reach a consensus when Vjosa Osmani’s five-year term as president ended in April.
Kurti’s LVV has secured enough seats to constitute the Assembly and vote in the new government, also counting on the support of non-majority community parties.
For the vote to elect Kosovo’s president to be valid, however, 80 lawmakers must be present in the 120-seat Assembly.
Artan Muhaxhiri described Abdixhiku’s proposal regarding the president as “strange” and “belated,” assessing that it does not bring the country any closer to resolving the crisis.
According to the analyst, the most useful step Abdixhiku could take would be to meet with the other opposition leaders and build a united front, which would be incomparably stronger than each party acting separately. Muhaxhiri said the LDK leader has distanced himself both from the other opposition parties and from Kurti, a situation that, in his view, “works in LVV’s favor.”
Speaking to Radio Free Europe, Muhaxhiri said the idea of a nonpartisan president had existed before. For this reason, he questioned why the meetings between the LDK and LVV had been necessary.
He said there was no reason to spend so much time and hold all those meetings if the parties were ultimately going to return to square one.
Muhaxhiri said the biggest compromise Kurti could make would be to give the other side the post of Parliament speaker, an option that, according to him, has also been mentioned in recent days. He predicted that Abdixhiku’s proposal would be completely unacceptable to Kurti and added that, even under a different scenario, it would be very difficult to find a candidate who met the requirements. For this reason, he called the proposal belated and said it does not help achieve a realistic and normal solution.
The analyst even described as a “major mistake” the declaration that the LDK would help elect the president only if its conditions were met. According to him, Abdixhiku “is not in a position to dictate conditions” because he faces major problems within the LDK and cannot guarantee all 18 votes of the party’s lawmakers, even if an agreement with LVV on the head of state were reached.
Muhaxhiri said the LDK, the Democratic Party and the Alliance are each putting forward different ideas for overcoming the crisis. According to him, the most logical solution would be for all three parties to devise a broadly coordinated approach so they could confront Kurti with concrete alternatives or options.
If these parties managed to identify a worthy presidential candidate, Muhaxhiri said, this would create political and public pressure on Kurti.
He explained that, in such a case, both the discourse and the entire narrative surrounding the president would change, while the battle over the issue would take a different and clearer direction. Muhaxhiri added that such a development could force Kurti to change his position.
Even if they fail to unite around the issue of the president, Muhaxhiri believes the opposition parties should hold meetings and build mutual trust. Otherwise, according to him, they “will hardly be able to challenge” Kurti.
In addition to the LDK, the PDK and the Alliance have also expressed their readiness to remain in opposition.
