Kosovo heads to polls hoping to break political deadlock

After nearly a year of political paralysis, Kosovo returns to the polls on Sunday in a vote that could determine if the country makes progress on its stalled path toward the European Union.

A February election saw a clear winner, caretaker Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s ruling Self-Determination party, which picked up 42 percent of the vote. However, it failed to secure an absolute majority and then was unable to form a coalition with another party.

Kurti’s party has pushed Kosovo into deeper isolation, as its left-wing populist approach and efforts to assert Kosovo’s sovereignty in the Serb-majority north have strained ties with both the U.S. and the EU, leading to punitive measures.

A spokesperson for Kurti declined to comment for this article.

None of the major opposition parties wanted to work with Self-Determination, nor did they approve of Kurti’s multiple attempts to nominate a speaker of parliament. Kurti even offered to give up his position as prime minister to assuage the opposition, but to no avail.

That meant President Vjosa Osmani was forced to trigger a snap election in November, making it Kosovo’s seventh parliamentary ballot since it declared independence from Serbia in 2008.

Ahead of Sunday’s vote, opposition parties such as the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), and Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) show no signs of changing their stance on Kurti.

“LDK, PDK, and AAK see Kurti as a populist who has hampered relations with the West and sabotaged NATO membership and the EU integration process,” Haki Abazi, a parliamentary candidate for AAK, told POLITICO.

Abazi was deputy prime minister under Kurti during his first term in 2019, but was later expelled from the party due to disagreements over political direction. “Kurti is seen as toxic and fragmenting,” said Abazi, adding that’s why none of the three parties will form a coalition with the Self-Determination leader.

There is a possibility that all three opposition parties could form a coalition to prevent another political deadlock, with Abazi calling such a scenario “very likely.”

However, MP Blerta Deliu-Kodra from PDK told POLITICO that “it remains to be seen what the numbers will be” — although she expects a government to be formed without Kurti as prime minister.

PDK candidate Hajdar Beqa told POLITICO that “Kurti’s government has seriously harmed Kosovo’s European integration process,” stressing the need for a new government to “return the country on a secure path toward the EU.”

However, acting deputy foreign minister and Self-Determination candidate Liza Gashi told POLITICO that during Kurti’s mandate, the ruling party “strengthened democratic institutions, improved key economic indicators, expanded social protection, and governed with integrity and stability. [Self-Determination] enters these elections with a strong governing record and broad public support.”

Meanwhile, Kosovo’s application for EU membership remains “in the drawers of the European Union,” Osmani said, speaking during an EU-Western Balkans Summit last week. The country applied in 2022, but little progress has been made since.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced at the summit that the EU will lift 2023 sanctions against Kosovo over tensions in the Serb-majority north and unblock over €400 million in financial aid.

But if the country fails to form a government again, Kosovo risks losing access to the bloc’s €6 billion Growth Plan for the Western Balkans, as it needs to deliver reforms to unlock the funding.

“Kosovo already faces an uphill battle because of five non-recognizer [EU] states, and the country cannot afford another year lost to the politicians’ inability to do what they were elected for — provide solutions, not create problems,” said Besar Gërgi, an expert in European integration at the Group for Legal and Political Studies, a Kosovo think tank.

Cyprus, Slovakia, Spain, Greece and Romania do not recognize Kosovo.

When asked by POLITICO what to expect from Sunday’s election, Osmani expressed confidence that it would meet “the best democratic standards,” deliver swift results and allow for the rapid formation of government institutions.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said he hopes “for a big and significant victory” for Kosovo’s largest ethnic Serb party, Serb List, expecting that it will secure seats to “represent the interests of Serbs, not Albin Kurti.”

Serbia still does not recognize Kosovo and refers to the state as ‘Kosovo and Metohija,’ its former name as a Serbian province. The EU has attempted to remediate relations between Kosovo and Serbia through the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue; however, despite years of talks, the intervention has produced few concrete results.

Kosovo and Serbia signed a normalization agreement in 2023, which involves de facto mutual recognition of each other’s sovereignty.

“We need to normalise relations with Serbia,” said Kurti in a recent interview with AFP. “But normalising relations with a neighboring authoritarian regime that doesn’t recognize you, that also doesn’t admit to the crimes committed during the war, is quite difficult,” he added.

Kurti wants Serbia to “hand over Milan Radoičić,” a former Serb List politician who plotted a terrorist attack on northern Kosovo in 2023 that resulted in the death of a Kosovo policeman. Radoičić is wanted in Kosovo but is currently in Serbia.