Kosovo’s political parties are treading water until the country’s Constitutional Court rules on whether President Vjosa Osmani acted within the law in dissolving parliament on March 5 after MPs failed to elect her successor.
If the court endorses Osmani’s decree, Kosovo will hold its third parliamentary election in 15 months.
Osmani’s five-year term ends in April. She has voiced her wish to continue, but this time the ruling Vetevendosje party of Prime Minister Albin Kurti, which backed her last time, proposed its own candidate, Foreign Minister Glauk Konjufca, as well as Vetevendosje MP Fatmire Mulhaxha Kollcaku.
Condemning Vetevendosje for not seeking a consensus, opposition MPs boycotted a session of parliament earlier this month that began two hours before the deadline to elect a new head of state, depriving the chamber of the necessary quorum. Osmani promptly dissolved parliament, only for her decree to be challenged by Vetevendosje before the Constitutional Court.
The court is expected to rule by the end of March. The work of parliament is suspended until then.