Kosovo Assembly’s constitutive session to continue on Sunday; here is the agenda

Kosovo’s Assembly constitutive session will continue on Sunday, September 13, at 10:00 a.m. According to the Assembly’s official announcement, lawmakers will have the election of the deputy speakers on the agenda.

The constitution of the 11th legislature has once again remained deadlocked, after lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on the voting procedure for the five deputy speakers on September 11. The Democratic Party of Kosovo and the Democratic League of Kosovo accused the party that won the elections of blocking the process, while the Vetëvendosje Movement declared that it could not vote for candidates for deputy speaker who oppose the candidate for president of the state. For this reason, the continuation of the session was scheduled for Sunday, September 13, KosovaPress reports.

After more than a month of political deadlock, the Assembly had made progress toward completing the constitution process. On Wednesday, during the continuation of the constitutive session, the speaker of the Kosovo Assembly was elected with 62 votes in favor, while her candidacy received 16 votes against.

Two days later, on September 11, Vetëvendosje Movement lawmaker Ardian Gola was elected deputy speaker of the Assembly. He received 101 votes in favor, with no votes against and one abstention, enabling him to take the second-highest position in the country’s parliament.

The Democratic Party of Kosovo had nominated Vlora Çitaku for one of the deputy speaker positions, but she did not receive the required votes in the first round. Çitaku secured 44 votes in favor, one against and 56 abstentions. Following the result, PDK lawmakers left the chamber and announced that they would not return, warning that they would turn to the Constitutional Court over the delay in constituting the Kosovo Assembly.

Also on September 11, lawmakers from the Democratic League of Kosovo left the chamber during another attempt to proceed with the election of the deputy speakers. This once again led to the failure of the constitutive session. The LDK opposed the attempt by the Assembly speaker to put her proposal for deputy speaker, Kujtim Shala, to an individual vote before a deputy speaker from the ranks of the second-largest party, PDK, had been elected.

After the LDK Parliamentary Group left, Assembly Speaker Albulena Haxhiu decided that the continuation of the constitutive session would be held on September 13, beginning at 10:00 a.m.