Kosovo appears to be heading towards new snap elections after a meeting on Monday between Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and leader of opposition party Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, Lumir Abdixhiku failed to bring a solution on the country’s next president.

Kosovo MPs have until April 28 to elect a new president under a Constitutional Court deadline that provided time for MPs to avoid fresh elections, which would be the third in less than two years. After MPs failed to form institutions following elections in February 2025, the country held a second poll in late December.

But Kurti declined the possibility of giving the post of president to any opposition party, citing the most recent election results where his party won an unprecedented 51 per cent of the votes.

“December 28 is being denied as if nothing happened that day,” Kurti said, adding that LDK had not asked for the post of president. He also emphasised that LDK was in no position to request the role, having only won a 13 per cent vote share.

“I offered LDK a government partnership with Vetevendosje and other partners, including [the posts of] deputy prime minister, foreign minister and three other ministries.” Kurti told the media after the meeting. “I would have preferred for Abdixhiku to become my deputy prime minister and to start a new chapter.”

Kurti claimed that Kosovo “is headed towards new, unnecessary elections”, which would cost the country both time and money.

“New elections cost at least 10 million euros, will bring similar results and will not provide a new solution because we will not have 80 MPs for the quorum,” he said, referring to the two-thirds of MPs required to take part in an Assembly vote to elect a new president. “We should have tried more and our offer of governance should not have been refused.”

Kurti also added that after Abdixhiku rejected the idea of joining his cabinet, he had offered Abdixhiku the option of LDK taking the post of parliament speaker, a position that is now held by Vetevendosje’s Albulena Haxhiu.

Abdixhiku told media after the meeting that his party would “prepare for the worst, heavier and incomprehensible scenario of new extraordinary elections.”

“I tried but did not manage [to find a solution], therefore we now have to go back to LDK,” he added. “We haven’t demanded any positions for me nor LDK. But in these circumstances, LDK cannot do more than that… We have not heard any proposal other than for the president to belong to Vetevendosje. LDK considers this topic closed from this moment on.”

After the failure of talks with LDK, Kurti said he messaged Bedri Hamza, leader of the Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, requesting a meeting.

PDK MP Perparim Gruda wrote on Facebook that Kurti has wasted the time provided by the Constitutional Court to elect the president.

“It is enough to see how this time was used: out of 34 days, seven were spent on fruitless visits abroad, while the other three weeks were spent without any serious attempt at [finding] a solution,” Gruda wrote. “Now, with only one week left, political statements no longer have any weight, because his destructive actions in both rounds of the presidential election speak louder than any words.”

The mandate of former President Vjosa Osmani ended on April 4. Several months before Osmani’s term came to an end, she expressed the wish to run for a second term. But Kurti’s ruling Vetevendosje party, which had backed her for her first mandate, instead proposed its own candidates – Foreign Minister Glauk Konjufca and MP Fatmire Mulhaxha Kollcaku.

On March 5, when the Assembly failed to elect her successor, Osmani dissolved parliament. But the Constitutional Court then overturned Osmani’s decree and gave MPs 34 more days to try to choose a head of state and avoid new elections, which will become inevitable if a new president is not elected by April 28.