Constitutive session of the 11th Assembly of Kosovo - what is on the agenda, what are the procedures and deadlines?

The constitutive session of the 11th Assembly of Kosovo has been scheduled for today at 10 a.m. The candidate for Assembly Speaker is nominated by the Self-Determination Movement, as the party with the largest number of seats (53), and at least 61 votes are required for election. The Assembly is considered constituted once the Speaker and five deputy speakers have been elected.

According to the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly of Kosovo, the agenda of the constitutive session includes: the establishment of the Temporary Committee for the Verification of Quorum and Mandates, the swearing-in of MPs, the election of the Assembly Speaker, and the election of the deputy speakers.

These items are also included in the agenda announced yesterday by the Assembly's Directorate for Media and Public Relations.

Until the Speaker is elected, the session will be chaired by the oldest MP, Avni Dehari of Self-Determination, assisted by the youngest MP, Fatma Taci of the Turkish Democratic Party of Kosovo.

According to a Constitutional Court ruling issued in August last year, the Assembly Speaker is elected by public vote, and the same candidate may be voted on no more than three times. The ruling also requires MPs to be present and vote during the election process for the Speaker and deputy speakers.

The only person Self-Determination has so far mentioned as its candidate for Assembly Speaker is Albulena Haxhiu. If elected, this will be her second time serving as head of the legislature.

Following the election of the Speaker, the Assembly will proceed to elect five deputy speakers, who also require at least 61 votes for election.

Three candidates are nominated by the three largest parties in parliament: Self-Determination, the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), and the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK). One candidate is nominated by MPs from the Serb community, in this case the Serb List, as the Constitutional Court has ruled that the right to nominate a deputy speaker belongs to the party that won the majority of votes within the Serb community. One additional deputy speaker is nominated by MPs representing the other non-majority communities.

During the constitution of the 10th Assembly on February 11, all five deputy speakers were elected in a single package vote by prior agreement. This voting method is not explicitly provided for in the Constitution, but it is possible if there is an agreement among parliamentary groups or MPs.

The Assembly of Kosovo has 120 MPs, of whom 10 seats are guaranteed for the Serb community and 10 for other non-majority communities.

According to the results of the snap parliamentary elections held on June 7, the Self-Determination Movement won 53 seats, the PDK 22, the LDK 18, and the Alliance seven. The Serb List won nine of the 10 guaranteed seats for the Serb community, while one seat went to the For Freedom, Justice and Survival party, represented by Nenad Rasic.

The elected Serb List MPs are Zlatan Elek, Igor Simic, Srdjan Popovic, Slavko Simic, Jovana Radosavljevic, Ljiljana Stefanovic, Milan Joksimovic, Branislav Nikolic, and Tanja Vujovic.

The deadline for constituting the Assembly is 30 days from the certification of the election results, meaning it expires tomorrow, as the Central Election Commission certified the results on July 8. If, for any reason, the Assembly is not constituted, new elections would have to be held.

Government and president

Once the Assembly is constituted, the deadlines for forming the Government of Kosovo and electing the president will begin to run, given that former President Vjosa Osmani's term expired on April 4 this year and her successor was not elected within the prescribed deadline, which was the reason the June 7 elections were held.

The deadline for forming the government is 30 days, and it must be elected with at least 61 votes. The deadline for electing a new president is 60 days, with the possibility of up to three rounds of voting.

To be elected in the first or second round, a candidate must receive at least 80 votes. In the third round, 61 votes are sufficient, provided that at least 80 MPs are present in the chamber.