“A lot of work is ahead of us. Today’s result made it clear to us that we have to move ahead without any delays. Institutions will be created as soon as the election results are certified,” Albin Kurti said on Sunday during his first appearance before the media after the polls closed.
Kurti, the longtime leader of Vetevendosje and Kosovo’s incumbent prime minister, was making the comments as the latest results issued by the Central Election Commission suggested he will be in a position to pledge decisive action once the vote-counting procedures are completed. It was a very different scenario to February’s polls, which didn’t deliver a decisive result and left the country in limbo for ten months.
One hour later, Kurti and his Vetevendosje officials went to Pristina’s main square to celebrate with their jubilant supporters as if it was a landslide victory.
The preliminary results open the way for him to be reconfirmed for a third term as prime minister. With 56 MPs in the 120-seat parliament already secured for Vetevendosje, he must now wait for the counting of around 70,000 ballots from the diaspora, plus conditional votes, to see if his party will take another seat and make it easier for him to secure the minimum majority of 61 seats with the support of minority communities’ representatives, who have 20 seats set aside for them.