Kosovo on Sunday will mark one month since its voters went to polls to elect a new parliament, but the process is far from over, as the Central Election Commission, CEC, still has not announced the final results.
“Certification of results first,” Prime Minister Albin Kurti, whose Vetevendosje party came first in the February 9 elections, said on Friday, asked when he will start consultations with other political leaders on the new government.
As the election winner, Kurti will be given a mandate to form a government. If he does not succeed, the mandate will pass to other leaders.
As matters stand, Vetevendosje will have 48 of the 120 seats in parliament, a figure that obliges him to find coalition partners.
After four years of ruling alone, it must likely strike a deal with one of three bitter rivals – the Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, which came second, with 24 MPs, the Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, with 20 MPs, or the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, AAK, which won eight seats.
Under Kosovo’s electoral system, ethnic Albanian parties compete for 100 of the 120 seats, with the other 20 reserved for non-Albanian communities – 10 for Serbs and 10 for other non-majority communities, including Turks, Bosniaks, Roma, Ashkali, Gorani and Egyptians.
At loggerheads with the Belgrade-backed Sprska Lista party, which could claim all ten seats reserved for the Serb community, Kurti will have to hang his hopes on the ten other MPs coming from non-Serb minority parties.
Election legislation, however, obliges the Prime Minister to appoint at least one minister from the biggest Kosovo Serb party.
The PDK and AAK have already closed the door to any coalition agreement with Kurti, while the LDK has yet to make any commitment.
The CEC is meanwhile waiting for all procedures to be formally completed before certifying the election results.
“After the CEC announces the final results, there are some deadlines for the political entities and candidates, if they have any complaints about the results,” the CEC’s Valmir Elezi told BIRN on Friday.
Under the rules any complaint must be addressed to the Election Complaints and Appeals Panel, ECAP, a panel of judges which rules on the matters.
“If parties are not satisfied with the ECAP decision, then they can address them to the Supreme Court and CEC has to wait for their decisions and implement them before the certification,” Elezi added.
