Pavkovic: The Constitutional Court of Kosovo provided a possibility to avoid new parliamentary elections

Milos Pavkovic, Director of Strategy at the Center for European Policies in Belgrade, told Kosovo Online that the Constitutional Court of Kosovo, with its latest decision giving members of parliament a 34-day deadline to elect a speaker, has provided a possibility to avoid new parliamentary elections.

He emphasized that the Constitutional Court was not explicit on whether the session of the Assembly of Kosovo will continue with the same proposed candidates or whether MPs should propose new names.

“The Constitutional Court has set a deadline of 34 days to elect a speaker. If that does not happen, then according to the Constitution the parliament is dissolved and new parliamentary elections are held. When we talk about candidates, the position of Self-Determination was that the process had not even started. Therefore, according to their interpretation, they have the freedom to start the process from the beginning and propose new candidates. We will see whether this will lead to a new dispute and possibly another question for the Constitutional Court,” Pavkovic pointed out.

Pavkovic states that it is now up to political actors to reach an agreement.

“In essence, the Constitutional Court has taken the position of allowing one more opportunity before calling elections in order to avoid a political crisis. It has completely shifted responsibility to political parties, their leaders, as well as representatives of citizens sitting in parliament, to find a solution or to lead society into a new political crisis and new parliamentary elections,” our interlocutor said.

He adds that this decision definitely favors the ruling Self-Determination, regardless of the outcome - early parliamentary elections or an agreement on the speaker.

“Kurti is in a way the winner, because if he elects a speaker his mandate continues. If early parliamentary elections take place, they will again be postponed. We now have a 34-day deadline to elect a speaker, and then a 45-day deadline for elections. All of this works in Kurti’s favor, because with these deadlines he will manage to reach the beginning of summer, when the diaspora mostly returns from abroad to Kosovo, and they are traditionally voters of Self-Determination. In both cases, Kurti comes out as the winner,” he said.

When asked whether he believes the parties will manage to reach an agreement and elect a speaker, Pavkovic notes that it is quite possible Kurti will not be open to compromise.

“It is very difficult to assess at this moment because Kurti is quite rigid and firm in his stance, and it can very easily happen that he will not be open to any compromise with opposition parties. On the other hand, the opposition may again deny him a quorum, which would lead to parliamentary elections. On the other hand, an important factor will probably be Kurti’s own assessment of how he might perform in new elections. Based on that, he would actually decide whether to enter negotiations with opposition parties or not,” Pavkovic concluded.