Vetevendosje deputy leader Glauk Konjufca expressed optimism on Wednesday that an agreement can be reached with the opposition Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, to give the country a new president when the leaders of two parties, Albin Kurti and Lumir Abdixhiku respectively, hold their next talks on the troubled issue.

Kurti and Abdixhiku are expected to meet this week to discuss concrete names following two previous meetings in recent weeks in which they both said they have been focused more on “principles” of a deal which would avoid new potential snap elections, the fourth within less than two years

“I consider that there is a great probability of having a [new] president, an agreement on a president,” Konjufca said.

“Vetevendosje is ready, Prime Minister [Albin] Kurti is ready. We have [proposals for] names but, I am sorry, I will not share them with you because then the negotiation process would lose its meaning,” he added.

Konjufca’s comments came amid political deadlock, with the parliament derived from the June 7 polls yet to be inaugurated.

MPs have failed for three weeks to elect a new parliament leadership, creating a fresh institutional logjam as the provisional parliament speaker, Avni Dehari from Vetevendosje, refuses to resume the inaugural session which started on August 6. Vetevendosje is refusing to submit a name for the speaker, as it first demands an agreement with other parties on the election of a new president.

Parliament’s rules require him to invite the MPs to a session every 48 hours until they elect a speaker.

But the last time Dehari actually presided over a session was on August 8, and that session lasted only a few minutes after Vetevendosje leader and incumbent Prime Minister Kurti asked for “more time” for negotiations with other parties about a new president.

In elections in June, Albin Kurti’s Vetevendosje won 53 of the 120 seats in the Assembly, putting them well ahead of the PDK, which won 22. The Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) won 18 seats and has insisted on having the president’s post, which Vetevendosje has deemed a “disproportionate” demand.

Kurti is likely to obtain a simple majority in the assembly to form a new government by again relying on the support of MPs from ethnic minority communities – Roma, Ashkali, Egyptian, Turk and Bosniak – plus one of the Serb MPs.

However, the wider crisis that led to the June 7 elections has not been solved. The parties still need to agree on the election of a new president within two months of the inauguration of the new assembly, otherwise a new election will be triggered.

With two other opposition parties, Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, and the Alliance, AAK, snubbing Kurti’s calls for further meetings while holding daily makeshift sessions in the parliamentary chamber, the LDK is the only party who could strike a deal over the presidency.

“As far as I am aware of, there is still no exact date for the new meeting [between Kurti and Abdixhiku],” Konjufca said. But he added: “They will meet to propose concrete names and I believe that new President of Kosovo will derive from those names.”