Kosovo MPs to Vote on New Govt Led by Avdullah Hoti

Just over two months after the Kosovo Assembly passed a no-confidence motion in Albin Kurti as prime minister, it is preparing to vote on a new government led by Avdullah Hoti of the Democratic League of Kosovo.

Lawmakers in the Kosovo Assembly. Photo: EPA-EFE/VALDRIN XHEMAJ

Kosovo’s parliament will vote on Wednesday morning on whether to endorse a new government led by Avdullah Hoti, the deputy head of the Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, only four months after the same chamber voted in a government led by Albin Kurti.

On Tuesday, Arben Gashi, the head of the parliamentary group of the LDK, which was Kurti’s governing coalition partner but initiated the no-confidence motion that toppled his government in late March, claimed that “we have 64 votes”. There are 120 lawmakers in the Kosovo Assembly so this represents a majority.

The votes would include 28 MPs from the LDK, four from the Social Democratic Initiative, NISMA and 13 from the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, AAK.

The LDK is also counting on votes from lawmakers representing minority communities in Kosovo. The Belgrade-supported Serb party Srpska Lista has ten MPs, and there are ten minority MPs.

The vote is being held after the Constitutional Court on May 28 ruled that President Hashim Thaci did not act unconstitutionally by giving a mandate to Hoti to form a new administration without holding fresh elections.

Thaci gave Hoti a mandate after Kurti’s outgoing ruling party, Vetevendosje, did not nominate anyone to replace him as premier.

Vetevendosje insisted that the country should hold new elections and called on Thaci to dissolve the assembly after losing the no-confidence vote.

However, Thaci had insisted he had the right to ask someone to form a new government without elections, and his stance was then endorsed by the Constitutional Court.

Former Prime Minister Kurti described the controversial court ruling as “unfair” and “unacceptable”. Former Deputy Prime Minister Haki Abazi went further, calling it evidence of “state capture” and accusing the court of taking sides.

On Saturday, Vetevendosje launched an online petition for new elections, which by the time of publication has been signed over 46,000 times. People can also sign the petition at Vetevendosje’s offices, and from Tuesday in the main squares of Kosovo’s cities.

Vetevendosje activists have not ruled out the possibility of holding street demonstrations following a series of so-called “rehearsal protests” that followed the relaxation COVID-19-related social distancing measures.

They included protesters wearing protective masks and gloves and keeping their distance with the aid of circles sprayed on the ground in a square in the capital Pristina.

Kosovo only held its last elections in October 2019, after Ramush Haradinaj resigned as prime minister because he was called in for questioning by a war crimes court in The Hague.

Vetevendosje, as the party that came first in that election, and the LDK as the party that came second, formed a coalition government.

But their coalition was fragile from the start and broke down after Kurti dismissed the LDK’s interior minister following a dispute over the handling of coronavirus prevention measures.

This article was amended on June 3, 2020, to replace March with May in this sentence: “The vote is being held after the Constitutional Court on March 28 ruled that President Hashim Thaci did not act unconstitutionally by giving a mandate to Hoti to form a new administration without holding fresh elections.”