Kosovo Parliament set to vote on new prime minister

PRISTINA, Kosovo – Kosovo’s parliament convened on Monday to vote in a new prime minister after four months of talks between the country’s two main parties.

Albin Kurti, 44, was nominated as prime minister. His left-wing Self-Determination Movement, or Vetevendosje!, topped the Oct. 6 snap election but fell short of a majority.

Vetevendosje! won 29 of the 120 seats in Kosovo’s parliament and is in coalition with the centre-right Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, which won one fewer.

The coalition talks between the two former opposition parties dragged as they disagreed over who should get the post of president when the incumbent’s mandate ends in 2021.

They have parked the issue and will discuss again nearer the time.

The LDK also laid claim to the post of speaker, which was already taken by Vetevendosje!‘s Glauk Konjufca at the parliament’s first session in December. He is expected to resign and be replaced by someone from the LDK.

Kurti will also need the support of smaller parties, or require a number of lawmakers to abstain in the vote. His new Cabinet should include a representative of the ethnic Serb minority, according to Kosovo’s constitution.

The snap election was called after then Prime Minister, Ramush Haradinaj, was summoned in July to be questioned by a Netherlands-based international court on war crimes allegedly committed during and after the 1998-1999 war in the country .

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Serbia doesn’t recognize Kosovo.