Surlic: Revoking MPs' mandates is an unrealistic scenario, appears to be a spin

Assistant professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade, Stefan Surlic, believes that revoking the mandates of all members of the Kosovo Assembly if the Assembly is not constituted by July 26, the deadline set by the Constitutional Court, is an unrealistic scenario. He sees the threat to MPs, particularly opposition members, that they could lose their mandates as a delaying strategy that benefits the Self-Determination Movement.

"I think this is a spin deliberately coming primarily from the ruling structure and people close to them, who are saying, 'look, there won’t be elections, we will even change the composition of the Assembly.' We're talking about a very unrealistic scenario, because although MPs’ mandates have been formally verified, the Assembly has not been constituted. So, if the Assembly is not constituted, we can't expect any kind of sanction. Hypothetically, even if MPs were to lose their mandates, the electoral lists have the right to nominate new MPs. All of this can be seen as buying time, because on one hand we have a technical government, we don’t have a constituted Assembly, and the general political atmosphere is one leaning toward elections," Surlic said.

According to him, the currently ruling structure of Albin Kurti is trying to delay the elections, possibly to merge them with local elections or even to avoid holding central and local elections together.

"If there were consensus among political parties about holding new elections, I think they would have found a solution by now. But there hasn’t been any kind of tacit agreement, and so we have this caricature-like situation where they keep trying to constitute the Assembly through countless sessions to elect the Speaker. Regardless, even if a measure to revoke mandates or a new ruling from the Constitutional Court were somehow introduced, the problem remains that the Assembly is not constituted and, as such, cannot function as a legislative body. Elections are the only way out of the political crisis," our interlocutor stated.