The joint plan between the Vetëvendosje Movement and the Democratic League of Kosovo for the country’s new head of state has been called into question after six LDK lawmakers refused to support the agreement, making the election of the next president uncertain.
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Despite the internal opposition, Prime Minister Albin Kurti insists that the agreement with the party led by Lumir Abdixhiku remains in force and is fully valid.
However, for analyst Donika Emini, the current political formula is simply no longer sufficient.
Emini, a researcher at the European Balkans Policy Advisory Group, told Radio Free Europe that the stance of the six deputies against joint candidate Bekim Sejdiu shows that the coalition does not have the 80 votes needed for a quorum, making it essential to include other parliamentary forces in the agreement.
Vetëvendosje holds 53 seats in the Assembly, while Abdixhiku acknowledges that currently only 12 LDK deputies are ready to vote for Sejdiu. Even if the votes of the non-Serb minorities, with whom Kurti formed the previous government, were added, the numbers would still not be enough for Sejdiu to become Kosovo’s sixth president since the declaration of independence.
Kurti has long maintained a firm stance against the Serb List, the main party of the Serb community, which enjoys Belgrade’s support and secured nine seats in the June elections.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party of Kosovo has 22 lawmakers, while the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo has seven.
“For this agreement to become functional, it must necessarily be expanded to include an additional partner, either the Alliance or the PDK. But this would create an entirely new political configuration, bringing with it a series of other challenges,” Emini assesses.
For months, the Alliance led by Ardian Gjini has put forward six conditions for providing its support to the institutions, while Bedri Hamza’s PDK has rejected any cooperation with Kurti, both on the government and the head of state, declaring that it will remain in opposition during this mandate.
Only Lumir Abdixhiku’s LDK agreed to enter talks with Kurti, initially on forming a joint government—a process that stalled after the LDK demanded the presidency—and later on the president himself, resulting in the August 31 agreement.
That day, the two parties presented their joint candidate, but just 24 hours later, six LDK deputies openly came out against him.
The LDK leader said that by taking this stance, the deputies were inevitably leading the country toward elections, while Kurti later described their conduct as “absurd,” “harmful” and “irresponsible,” adding that they were seeking new elections.
Emini emphasizes that Kurti’s signal that he will meet again with Abdixhiku and the LVV leadership to discuss the agreement does not necessarily mean that he is planning elections, but rather represents a “strategy that gives him time and political space.”
“He can continue talks with the LDK, see whether the six deputies change their position, assess whether the Alliance proves more flexible and, above all, wait for developments in The Hague on September 16,” she says, referring to the announcement of the verdict in the trial of former Kosovo Liberation Army leaders accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Although she says Kurti is not necessarily planning elections, if the Alliance or the PDK cannot be included in the agreement, “the time gained could also work in favor of an electoral scenario.”
“And here, the calendar carries considerable political weight. The inability to elect a president would send the country into another electoral cycle at a time that could suit Kurti much more than his opponents,” she says.
As far as the Alliance is concerned, Emini sees room for flexibility, despite the conditions it has put forward. Nevertheless, she says, the seven votes of the party formerly led by Ramush Haradinaj “cannot be secured automatically.”
Hamza’s PDK, meanwhile, is taking a more calculating position, according to the researcher. She believes that the party does not want elections, but is more interested in what will happen after the Special Court’s decision in The Hague.
An acquittal for former President Hashim Thaçi, who was also formerly the leader of the PDK, would open the way for his possible return to politics, profoundly changing the dynamics within the party and across the political scene.
Thaçi’s name for president had been put forward by former Alliance leader Haradinaj. Although Arian Tahiri of the PDK has supported the idea, the party’s secretary-general, Vlora Çitaku, has said that Thaçi does not need positions, but “freedom.”
Precisely because of the developments in The Hague, Emini judges that it would be extremely difficult for the PDK at this point to enter into a new political agreement with Kurti.
“After the decision, depending on what happens and how it affects the PDK, we could have a completely different situation and a different political discussion,” she analyzes.
Nevertheless, when discussing a way out, she places the emphasis on the deadlines.
“The deadlines for electing a president are very tight, and expanding a coalition, negotiating with a new partner and finding a formula that can be accepted by everyone is not something that can easily be accomplished in a few days,” she says.
The 60-day period for electing the head of state begins with the constitution of the Assembly, a process that started on August 6 but was left suspended because LVV insists that agreement on the president must be reached first.
Nevertheless, Emini believes that Kurti handled the situation politically with skill after the developments within the LDK, which the LVV leader himself had described as negative.
According to her, he is building a narrative in which he is presented as a leader ready for compromise, “who continues to seek dialogue with the LDK and is ready to wait until the end to find a solution.”
In his late statement on September 1, Kurti insisted that the LVV candidate for president remains Bekim Sejdiu, a former Constitutional Court judge and former diplomat.
According to Emini, Kurti is making “a very strategic move” by insisting that “Bekim Sejdiu is ‘the Republic’s candidate,’ and not merely the candidate of a party agreement.”
“In this way, he elevates the candidacy above the LVV–LDK agreement and presents his support for it as a matter of institutional interest. Indirectly, this is also a criticism of the way the LDK is behaving: if the candidate belongs to the Republic and the goal is to unblock the institutions, then those who oppose him may be portrayed as the ones obstructing this interest,” she assesses.
One point Kurti and Abdixhiku have in common following the developments of September 1 is that they blame the six LDK deputies who opposed the agreement: Avdullah Hoti, Hykmete Bajrami, Kujtim Shala, Arben Gashi, Armend Zemaj and Janina Ymeri.
All of them have justified their vote by saying that it was against cooperation with LVV and against “extending Kurti’s rule.”
Emini says that Kurti and Abdixhiku have different motives for shifting the blame to this group of deputies.
Kurti, she says, blames these deputies for the deadlock rather than the LDK leadership because the latter “may be needed for a future agreement, even if snap elections are held.”
Abdixhiku, meanwhile, uses the blame for another political objective. He “may distance himself from responsibility for the LDK’s future result,” Emini judges.
“If his party fails, he has already created a narrative in which those six deputies who blocked the agreement bear the blame, while political responsibility for the party’s performance is shifted onto them. In this sense, the six deputies could also become a kind of ‘scapegoat’ for the LDK’s broader problems,” she assesses.
Nevertheless, according to Emini, the opposition within the LDK stems from the fact that the negotiation process for the agreement was not transparent. She says the outcome was expected, since for a long time there have been divisions and rivalries within Abdixhiku’s party “that go beyond this candidacy.”
Abdixhiku faced a no-confidence motion in July, but managed to survive it and remain at the head of the party. Earlier, he had also sought a vote of confidence to lead the party after the election results.
“As the party leader, Abdixhiku bears the primary responsibility for failing to keep his parliamentary group united and manage this conflict within the party. What we are seeing today is, above all, a crisis of leadership and internal cohesion within the LDK, which is now manifesting itself through the presidential process,” Emini concludes.
If Kosovo’s political scene fails to elect a new president, citizens will once again head to the polls—for the fourth election in less than two years and the second resulting from a lack of consensus over the issue of the presidency. /RFE
