The deadline for constituting Kosovo’s Assembly expires tonight. However, even the third attempt failed to produce a political agreement between LVV leader Albin Kurti and LDK leader Lumir Abdixhiku.
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After the meeting, Kurti, who is also acting prime minister, said that a democratic balance must be established and that the will of the citizens expressed in the June 7 elections must be taken into account.
According to him, the main obstacle to reaching an agreement so far has been the significant gap between each party’s result and its specific ambitions. Despite this, he said that hope must not be lost and that the parties should remain optimistic about the possibility of reaching an agreement.
Speaking about the issue of the president, Kurti recalled that Osmani had been elected to the post after the race was structured in such a way that the first-place finisher would become prime minister and the second would become president.
This time, according to the LVV leader, a consensus figure—not a party candidate—is needed for the post of president. He said he knew a number of people with the values and principles required to carry out the task, but did not want to mention specific names so that it would not later be said that the candidacy had been proposed by Albin Kurti.
Kurti also stressed that he was doing everything possible to find a way out of the situation that had arisen.
On the other hand, after the meeting, Lumir Abdixhiku announced that the LDK wanted the right to nominate the president if a coalition with LVV was formed.
He described the December offer, under which the LDK would receive only the post of deputy prime minister and several ministries, as insufficient and undignified.
Abdixhiku said that his party could neither accept nor consider such an offer. According to him, if the LDK’s involvement was being sought, it should have representation. He acknowledged that the post of prime minister did not belong to the LDK and that, under the Constitution, the premiership belonged to LVV, while the only possibility for representation was a proposal for the presidency—but not a blank-check proposal, since the president should belong to all of Kosovo.
It remains to be seen whether the session on constituting the Assembly will be held tonight. So far, Prime Minister Albin Kurti has met only with representatives of the Democratic League of Kosovo. The Democratic Party of Kosovo has declared that it will remain in opposition, while the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo has set conditions and refused any meeting with Kurti.
Political analyst Lirim Gashi spoke to “Bota sot” about the positions of the PDK and AAK. He believes that the two parties have the right to disagree with LVV programmatically, but stresses that democracy is not limited to electoral competition alone.
According to Gashi, a clear distinction must be made between the opposition’s right not to join a coalition with LVV and its political responsibility to communicate when the functioning of the state is at risk. As he said, the PDK and AAK may have programmatic disagreements, may not want to enter a coalition government, and may set the conditions under which they would or would not support a particular solution, since this is normal in a democracy.
However, the analyst stressed that democracy also entails the ability to reach a compromise when the institutional interest requires it. He pointed out that Kosovo was not facing an ordinary party dispute, but an institutional blockade, the need to establish functioning institutions, and the election of a president.
For this reason, Gashi does not consider refusing dialogue to be a good political solution, regardless of which side it comes from. According to him, the most responsible course would be for all the parties to sit down at a common table without predetermining the outcome of the discussions.
He explained that taking part in talks does not mean accepting the opponent’s program, but recognizing that the state stands above party interests. In fact, he said, such a meeting would also serve the opposition, which could clearly state which issues it did not accept and on which matters it was willing to negotiate.
Gashi explained that when one side refuses to talk simply because it disagrees with the other, the situation remains at the level of political conflict. By contrast, when the parties communicate despite their differences in order to find a solution in the state’s interest, this constitutes institutional democracy.
However, he stressed that responsibility could not be placed solely on the PDK and AAK. LVV, he said, must also demonstrate a willingness for a genuine compromise and not hold consultations merely to prove to the public who was to blame. A serious agreement requires each side to give something up.
Gashi’s position is that the opposition does not have to join the government if it does not want to, but it should agree to sit at the negotiating table when the aim is to unblock the institutions. He directed the same request at LVV: not to seek only the opposition’s votes, but also to offer the compromise that would make such support possible.
Asked whether new elections, triggered by the failure to form institutions and the lack of consensus on a president, would significantly change the results or leave the balance between the political forces almost unchanged, Gashi said that a new electoral process could produce shifts.
He avoided making a categorical prediction, arguing that elections are not a poll that is mechanically repeated. According to him, changes are possible, particularly when citizens vote after a prolonged period of institutional crisis.
Referring to the results of the June 7 elections, Gashi said that he currently saw no strong reason to believe that holding new elections alone would enable either side to spectacularly overturn the existing political balance. LVV came convincingly first with 53 seats, the PDK won 22, the LDK 18, and the AAK 7.
Despite these figures, he underlined that a new result would not necessarily be identical. The next elections would take place in a completely different climate, as citizens had already seen the consequences of the parties’ inability to build a compromise.
According to Gashi, the question for each party would not be only how many votes it could win, but also what it would do with those votes. If, after a new electoral process, citizens once again faced the same deadlock, they could punish not only the losing parties but also the way in which political entities had used the mandate entrusted to them.
For this reason, the analyst expects more shifts in votes within the existing political landscape than an inevitable overturning of the entire political system.
Gashi said that some parties could gain a few percentage points while others could lose them, and that the electorate could become mobilized or demobilized. However, without a major political development, a radical change would remain much more difficult to predict.
He also drew attention to a paradox: if opposition parties believe that new elections would significantly improve their position, they must also consider the possibility that they could further strengthen LVV. At the same time, if LVV believes it can secure an absolute majority without difficulty, there is no guarantee that this will happen.
For Gashi, new elections represent a gamble for all parties. According to him, the main risk is not only linked to the number of seats each entity might win, but to whether Kosovo will emerge from the elections with functioning institutions or once again enter a new cycle of blockades.
For this reason, he would prefer the parties to exhaust every opportunity for an agreement before taking the country back to elections. Gashi concluded that elections are a democratic tool for resolving political disputes, but they should not be used as a way to avoid compromise. In the end, as he stressed, citizens do not vote only to determine the winner, but also so that someone will take responsibility for governing the country.
