Dehari made the same argument in his own name.
“Constituting the Assembly and forming a government without a prior agreement on the president means snap elections, something we need to avoid.”
The opposition and part of the legal community reject that link. Their argument is that electing a speaker must not be made conditional on securing support for a presidential candidate, and that the constitutional clock has not even started running yet.
Hasani: she is not acting president and cannot call the parties
Former Constitutional Court of Kosovo president Enver Hasani has entered the dispute against both sides. He disputes Hadziju’s very status, arguing that she lost it the moment she took up her parliamentary mandate.
“Ms. Hadziju cannot speak on behalf of the head of state. The moment she took the oath as a lawmaker, she could no longer serve as acting president of the Republic.”
Hasani specified that even a legitimate acting president would have no right to call the parties for political consultations, except when setting the date of an election. He sees the same problem of a dual mandate, parliamentary and executive, in Kurti’s case as well.
Dehari fares no better in his view. Hasani called the acting speaker’s conduct entirely unconstitutional and arbitrary, saying it will be remembered as a black mark on the country’s political and constitutional history. He also opposes sending the deadlock back to the Constitutional Court, since, as he put it, rulings already exist that govern the formation of central institutions, so a new proceeding on the same questions would only add political pressure on the Court.
Pressure shifts to outside the government building
While Tuesday is awaited, PDK is taking the dispute to the street. The party’s lawmakers gathered outside the government building in Pristina both yesterday and today, after trying the previous day to enter the assembly hall and finding the doors locked. Lawmaker Vljora Citaku told Kurti to return to parliament.
“We are outside the government again today: Albin, come to the Assembly and open the way back to constitutional order. Do not hold the state, its institutions, and the interests of citizens hostage to your political calculations.”
AAK lawmaker Burim Ramadani extended the criticism to the state of local government. He said municipalities in Kosovo face unprecedented obstacles and are under unprecedented pressure from the central government, not only a financial one, accusing the executive of acting contrary to the Law on Local Self-Government. In a separate post he added that a government without a mandate is crippling municipalities, and that the deadlock, since there is nowhere to debate it, has become multi-layered.
The consultations remain scheduled for Tuesday at nine in the morning. Hadziju said she hopes attitudes will change by then, though without PDK and AAK at the table, the parties that would remain are largely those that do not disagree much on the key question in the first place.