First LDK Refusal Alters Calculations Slightly, Will Kurti and Abdixhiku Secure Votes for Bekim Sejdiu as President?

Albin Kurti and Lumir Abdixhiku agreed that Bekim Sejdiu be elected President, but how many votes can Vetëvendosje Movement and the Democratic League of Kosovo secure in the Assembly?

Shqiprim Salihu, Gazeta Express

The failure to elect the President, which forced Kosovars to return to the ballot boxes for the third time in about a year and a half, is not yet a settled matter, despite the fact that the acting prime minister, leader of the Vetëvendosje Movement, Albin Kurti, and the leader of the Democratic League of Kosovo today agreed that Bekim Sejdiu be the joint candidate for head of state.

With the Democratic Party of Kosovo having decided to remain in opposition and not to get involved in the negotiations for the President, and the Alliance having presented six demands that the LVV leader would have to meet in exchange for support for the creation of institutions without this party’s participation in government, the two parties that reached the agreement today will have to do their calculations well.

LDK MP Avdullah Hoti, asked if he would vote for Sejdiu for President, answered briefly to Gazeta Express: “NO”. He then wrote in a Facebook post that he “does not support this candidacy for President of the Republic of Kosovo, not for personal reasons, but on a political and institutional principle”.

“The President of the Republic must be a unifying figure, who builds consensus beyond partisan interests and represents the general interest of the citizens. In my assessment, this candidacy does not meet this criterion,” he wrote.

Kurti and Abdixhiku agreed today on the name of Bekim Sejdiu for President, in their fourth meeting since the LDK on August 13 abandoned talks to join a coalition government with LVV and dropped the demand for the position of head of state.

After announcing the agreement with Kurti, Abdixhiku wrote on Facebook that “the LDK will support this agreement with the conviction that the state is more important than any party interest.”

Tomorrow, a meeting of the LDK Presidency will be held, followed by a meeting of the Parliamentary Group, Gazeta Express has learned.

Can LVV and LDK elect Bekim Sejdiu as President?

With PDK’s refusal, Kurti now must count on the votes he can gather with the LDK, if he does not wish to consider the Alliance’s six demands.

The election of the President is done with two-thirds of the votes of all Assembly deputies. If no candidate obtains the majority of 80 votes in the first two rounds of voting, the Constitution provides for a third vote between the two candidates who received the highest number of votes in the second round, and the candidate who receives at least 61 votes is elected President.

LVV has 53 deputies, while LDK has 18. With the 11 minority deputies, not including those of the Serbian List, there are 82 deputies, enough to elect the President.

But, like Hoti, there are also other deputies in the LDK who are very vocal against LVV and who have even called for the removal of Abdixhiku from the party leadership. They may not be convinced to participate in the voting.

The deputy from the Bosniak community, Duda Balje, as well as the Gorani deputy, Adem Hoxha, as has been proven before, could also become a not easily solvable problem in the calculations for the election of Bekim Sejdiu as President.

Abdixhiku demanded today that after reaching this agreement, “without delays” the Assembly be constituted, the new government be elected, and Bekim Sejdiu take the position of head of state.

At Kurti’s request, the constitutive session of the Assembly that began on August 6 was interrupted twice in a row. He did not propose the candidate for speaker of parliament, as required by the Constitution, because he considered it useless to elect the speaker and deputy speakers without a prior agreement on the election of the President.

According to a Constitutional Court ruling, the deadline for constituting the Assembly expired at midnight on August 7. However, the chair of the session, Avni Dehari – the oldest deputy of the Assembly, who comes from LVV – set the continuation of the constitutive session for August 8, which was interrupted by him in the same manner as the day it started and did not continue further.

LVV has insisted that the constitutive session would not continue without a prior agreement on the President, for whose election a 60-day constitutional deadline has been set, which starts to run only after the Assembly is constituted.