Radojkovic: No surprise the Government wasn’t formed — snap elections the most likely outcome

Historian Stefan Radojkovic stated that it was not surprising that the Government of Kosovo proposed by Albin Kurti was not approved today, and that the next step is to see whether the second-largest party, the Democratic Party of Kosovo (DPK), can secure a majority to form a government. However, he believes that DPK too will lack the necessary support from the Serb List, making early elections the most probable outcome.

“This situation is not surprising. I’ve said before that it was highly unlikely Kurti would be able to reach an agreement, given that he has no support from the U.S. administration — which effectively means that all Albanian opposition parties have created a kind of sanitary cordon between themselves and Self-Determination. In other words, there was never a chance they would enter into any coalition with Kurti, especially not the major Albanian opposition parties. It seems to me, based on the preliminary voting results, that Self-Determination managed to obtain support from some representatives of minority communities,” Radojkovic told Kosovo Online.

He described the current situation as highly ironic.

“If he had the votes of the Serb List, he could have formed a coalition government. However, besides burning all bridges between himself, his party, and the U.S. administration, Kurti also burned all bridges between the Albanian and Serbian communities. The fact that one seat reserved for the Serbian community went to Nenad Rasic was not enough to give him the necessary number of votes to form a new government. The question now is whether the Democratic Party of Kosovo will be able to succeed where he failed,” Radojkovic said.

As for the next steps and the possibility of snap elections, Radojkovic recalled that the first thing to see is whether the Democratic Party of Kosovo, the second-strongest Albanian party, can form a government.

“It probably won’t, since it will most likely lack the votes of the Serb List to reach a governing majority. Even if it did, that majority wouldn’t be two-thirds — which is necessary to elect the president of the Pristina administration next year. Therefore, we have about two more weeks to see whether a new government led by DPK will be formed. If that doesn’t happen, then most likely sometime in December we can expect new early parliamentary elections,” Radojkovic concluded.

The Kosovo government was not formed at today’s parliamentary session, as the proposal by nominee Albin Kurti failed to receive the required majority of 61 votes.