Pavkovic: Self-Determination buying time either for an agreement or to postpone new elections

The Director of Strategy at the Centre for European Policies, Milos Pavkovic, says that although the constitutive session of the Kosovo Assembly could technically have been held as early as the beginning of July, when the final election results were announced, the main reasons for scheduling it only for August 6 are that Self-Determination is buying time for a potential agreement with the opposition and, if no agreement is reached, to push any new elections as far back as possible, when the diaspora will be present in Kosovo.

Although, as he points out, the constitutive session of parliament has been scheduled just before the legal deadline expires in order to give Self-Determination more time to find a coalition partner, or at least secure support for electing both the Assembly Speaker and the government, Pavkovic believes there is currently no appetite for such an arrangement.

"The second reason is the worst-case scenario - if no agreement is reached with the opposition parties, which at the moment appears to be the most likely outcome, then the aim is to postpone potential new parliamentary elections for as late as possible. That suits Self-Determination, which would potentially once again seek to benefit from votes cast by the diaspora, which returns to Kosovo at certain times to vote. They would likely use a holiday period when the diaspora comes back in order to secure a larger number of votes," Pavkovic told Kosovo Online.

He added that Self-Determination's obvious objective in such a scenario would be to once again shift responsibility onto the opposition while attempting to secure an outright majority.

According to Pavkovic, an agreement between the opposition and Self-Determination is possible in two ways.

The first would be an official coalition agreement either with the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) or another party capable of providing enough parliamentary seats.

"The second is potentially political horse-trading, or poaching MPs. The divisions currently taking place within the LDK may contribute to one of its MPs siding with Self-Determination. However, when it comes to electing the president, where a two-thirds majority is required, or at least a quorum for the presidential vote, we run into the same problem again. As time passes, it seems to me that we are getting closer to the scenario of another parliamentary election because there is no agreement among the political parties, and Self-Determination has also failed to win over enough MPs to support its candidates," Pavkovic assessed.