Since there were not at least 80 representatives in the hall, the election of a state president failed.Image: www.imago-images.de
April 29, 2026, 10:01 amApril 29, 2026, 10:01 am
In the Balkan country of Kosovo, the election of a president by parliament failed. The constitutional deadline for the election passed that night.
This means that a new parliament must be elected within 45 days. It would be the third general election within 15 months.
The people’s representation in the capital Pristina made four attempts on Tuesday to regulate the successor to President Vjosa Osmani, whose mandate ended on April 4th. The attempts were unsuccessful because there were fewer than the constitutionally prescribed number of 80 MPs in the room, as the news portal “koha.net” reported.
In the 120-seat parliament, Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s left-wing Vetevendosje (Self-Determination) party, together with representatives of the non-Serb minorities who are part of the government, have an absolute majority. But for the quorum in the presidential election, the presence of two-thirds of the representatives is required.
The outgoing President of Kosovo: Vjosa Osmani.Image: keystone
This regulation usually forces the respective government to propose a person for the highest state office who is acceptable to at least parts of the opposition. In the event of the now failed election, the government camp and the opposition are accusing each other of a lack of willingness to negotiate and compromise.
Two candidates were up for election
On Tuesday, Vetevendosje nominated two candidates for the four attempts at an election. The doctor Feride Rushiti (55) made a name for herself as a human rights activist who campaigned for civilian victims of the 1998/99 Kosovo war. The education politician Hatixhe Hoxha (61) was a member of parliament for the now opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) from 2001 to 2007.
Vetevendosje would have withdrawn Hoxha’s candidacy if the opposition had nominated its own candidate and taken part in the vote. Representatives of the opposition nevertheless resisted this because, in their opinion, Kurti’s party had not included them in any negotiations and had only been confronted with ready-made facts. (nil/sda/dpa)