December 28 elections in Kosovo/CEC: Over 70 thousand registered voters from the diaspora

2025-12-07 12:34:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

December 28 elections in Kosovo/CEC: Over 70 thousand registered voters from the

The Central Election Commission (CEC) in Kosovo has approved over 70,000 applications for voter registration outside Kosovo for the early parliamentary elections on December 28. The news was confirmed to Radio Free Europe by CEC spokesperson Valmir Elezi.

"According to preliminary data, during the 11-day period (November 26 - December 6) through the CEC's electronic platform, over 84,700 applications for registration to vote outside Kosovo were received, of which around 71,900 were approved, while around 6,700 were rejected. Around 5,900 applications are currently being evaluated ," Elezi said in several written responses.

He announced that the majority of voters have registered to vote by mail, over 51,000 of them, to send the ballot package to one of the mailbox addresses outside Kosovo and about 2,500 others have registered to send the ballot package to the CEC mailbox in Kosovo.

"Around 18,000 citizens have registered to vote physically at one of the diplomatic missions," Elezi said, among other things.

In the parliamentary elections of February 9 of this year, the CEC registered approximately 105 citizens in the diaspora to vote in that process.

In those elections, Kosovo organized physical voting for the first time through diplomatic missions, namely in 16 embassies and 14 consulates in 19 different countries around the world.

The snap elections are being held after it was impossible for Kosovo's political parties to reach a consensus to move forward, following the results of the February 9 elections, as neither party managed to secure the necessary numbers to govern alone.

The Vetëvendosje Movement came first and won 48 seats in the Assembly, leaving behind the Democratic Party of Kosovo with 24 seats, the Democratic League of Kosovo with 20, the Serbian List with nine, and the coalition between the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo and the Social Democratic Initiative, with eight.

The remaining seats were reserved for minorities. Some parties in Kosovo have been in favor of setting December 28 as the date for the elections, arguing that many Kosovo citizens from the diaspora return to their homeland during the holidays.

Among them was the Vetëvendosje Movement, which won the majority of the diaspora votes on February 9.

Several other parties have mentioned potential problems that may arise with monitoring the process on December 28, as some international observers may not be engaged, considering that a large part of the world is on vacation.

However, Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani justified her decision, saying that the CEC needed time to prepare, as the country held two other electoral processes in October and November - two rounds of local elections. /REL