Blockade of Kosovo’s Parliament: Legal tangles or a Kurti staged act?

For the ruling party – “an internal institutional attack on Kosovo and democratic elections.” For the opposition – a clear violation of the law and proof that the Self-Determination Movement lacks the majority needed to form the “Kurti 3” government. The failure to verify parliamentary mandates has sparked a new institutional crisis in Kosovo, and according to sources from Kosovo Online, it shows that regardless of who forms the future parliamentary majority and government, they will face serious challenges in preserving it.

Written by: Djordje Barovic

The inaugural session lasted a total of an hour and a half. And it didn’t move beyond the first agenda item – the Report of the Commission on the Verification of Mandates and Quorum. Opposition parties voted against this report, arguing that 16 MPs – current ministers in the caretaker government, including Albin Kurti – were first required to resign from their positions.

Kurti’s cabinet submitted those resignations today, with Kurti stating it would have been irresponsible to “leave the house without a host.”

Earlier, Kurti accused the opposition of carrying out “an internal institutional attack on Kosovo and democratic elections.”

He singled out the PDK, LDK, AAK, and also the Serb List.

“This is an internal institutional attack on the Republic of Kosovo and democratic elections. This is an unprecedented situation,” Kurti declared.

Donika Gërvalla, leader of the Guxo party and outgoing Minister of Foreign Affairs, warned that the newly created legal vacuum called into question the continuation of the inaugural session.

“We’ve now entered complicated procedures because no regulation or legal document of the Assembly anticipates the repetition of this vote. We’ve reached a point where it may be completely impossible to proceed with the constituting of the Assembly,” said Gërvalla, whose Guxo party is a coalition partner of Self-Determination.

Eugen Cakolli, a researcher at the Kosovo Democratic Institute, believes there are two fundamental reasons behind the failure to verify the mandates of the new parliamentary convocation.

“The first is the lack of the required number of votes, and the second, possibly the key reason, is the conflict of mandates involving at least 16 newly elected MPs in this convocation – most notably Prime Minister Kurti, as well as 15 ministers who hadn’t resigned their government posts,” says Cakolli.

“A Bolt from the Blue”

Political scientist Ognjen Gogic emphasizes that Kosovo has entered an institutional crisis and found itself in a situation no one anticipated.

“Before the session began, expectations centered on whether Kurti would have the majority to elect the Speaker of Parliament, which would then suggest he had the numbers to form a government. That’s where all eyes were focused. No one expected this twist – that the Assembly would fail to constitute itself,” Gogic told Kosovo Online.

He explained that the situation in which MPs refused to verify their own mandates is a completely new development, a “bolt from the blue” for which no one was prepared.

“It revealed that Kurti lacks a majority to elect the Speaker of Parliament – because if he had it, that majority would’ve shown itself during the mandate verification vote. However, it’s also surprising that the opposition refused to vote for their own mandates, justifying this by saying the government had not properly submitted resignations. This could lead to a future crisis if the Constitutional Court determines that the vote for the new government was unconstitutional,” Gogic added.

He points out that this has led to a legal gray area.

“There’s no legal provision for what to do if MPs don’t confirm their own mandates. Such a scenario was never anticipated. The voting is seen more as a technicality than a core political or legal issue,” Gogic said.

In this new situation, the pause in the constitution of the Kosovo Parliament can last up to 48 hours, which expires tomorrow.

“Within that timeframe, a solution must be found – how to proceed. Is it even possible to bring the vote back, or are we in a constitutional-legal crisis where the previous parliament’s term has expired and the new one hasn’t been constituted?” Gogic emphasized.

He believes that, sooner or later, the Constitutional Court will have to intervene.

“This is an institutional breakdown, and it could backfire on any political side that comes out as the winner in the government formation process – since the Constitutional Court may later determine that certain errors occurred that cannot be legally accepted. Politically speaking, this benefits the opposition, as it laid bare the fact that Kurti lacks a majority. Only 52 MPs voted to verify the mandates – far from the 61 required to elect the Speaker and form the government,” the analyst concluded.

On the other hand, it could be said that the opposition showed disrespect toward the Assembly by not voting to confirm their own mandates.

“Therefore, they also bear shared responsibility for the resulting crisis. In the short term, this may seem like a victory for the opposition, but in the end, everyone has lost, and Kosovo has entered a new crisis,” concludes Gogic.

Electoral Reflection

Political analyst Shkëlzen Maliqi told Kosovo Online that the failure of the constitutive session was a consequence of the results of the February elections.

“After these elections, Kosovo is a divided society. Voters distributed party strength in such a way that, without the minorities—especially without the Serbian minority, the Serb List—it’s very difficult to form a new government. No one has a majority, even though Self-Determination won convincingly,” claims Maliqi.

Commenting on the failure of the constitutive session of Kosovo’s parliament, the analyst emphasized that the opposition made it clear to the ruling party that it did not have enough votes even to verify mandates.

He explained that opposition parties used the very provisions of the law that the ruling party had previously passed.

“Kurti himself introduced the law that says a prime minister must either resign or remain in that post and relinquish their parliamentary mandate to someone else. It’s one or the other. He chose to remain in office and tried to vote along with his ministers. The opposition used that to demonstrate that he does not actually have the votes to form a government,” Maliqi explained.

He also sees the outcome of the constitutive session as a reflection of the newly developing rift between Albin Kurti and Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani.

“That wasn’t the case in 2021, when thanks to her voters he won a convincing majority,” Maliqi observed.

Commenting on Kurti’s claims that opposition parties and the Serb List were to blame for the failure to constitute the Assembly—and that this represented an “internal institutional attack on Kosovo and democratic elections”—Maliqi said Kurti has always blamed others because he sees himself as “above everything.”

“Everyone is to blame in Kurti’s eyes—the Constitutional Court, the Prosecutor’s Office, all institutions… None of it matters to him because he considers himself above it all. He’s God,” said Maliqi.

He explained that the crisis could be resolved if Kurti and the other ministers who were elected as MPs submit written resignations or give up their seats to other representatives.

“But as we see, he is still sitting in the prime minister’s office. He hasn’t left that post,” Maliqi noted.

He added that Kurti has used the institutional crisis to blame the opposition for everything.

“He claims it’s their fault because this should have been a procedural matter, an insignificant thing. But if he himself introduced the law, and it was adopted without opposition votes, then he should be the first to respect the basic rules,” Maliqi concluded.