Kosovo is stepping into a minefield

2026-03-06 16:32:00, Opinione Ditmir Bushati

The President of Kosovo decreed the dissolution of the newly established Parliament, following the latter's failure to secure the necessary quorum to begin the procedure for electing a new president.

It is not necessary to analyze the amendments to the Constitution that were considered in a flash; the request to the Constitutional Court to suspend the constitutional deadlines for electing the president, after failing to secure a quorum; and the President's decree itself to dissolve parliament.

None of these institutional movements replaces the political will and readiness that political actors lacked to elect the President of the Republic. The Constitution of Kosovo and the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court require a president who enjoys political support across the parties. In other words, a president who comes as a product of political compromise.

Kosovo is heading towards early elections, because compromise was considered a 'bad word.' However, the parliament that will be constituted by the new elections will also be subject to the same formula for electing the president.

Which means that, again, political compromise will be needed.
A somewhat similar formulation was in the 1998 Constitution of Albania, which provided that the president would be elected by a qualified majority of votes in a 5-round procedure in parliament. And if the parliament were dissolved because it failed to elect the president, the parliament formed by the new elections would be subject to the same formula.

The reason? The drafters of the Constitution and the prominent international experts who assisted that process after the tragic events of 1997 insisted that countries like Albania, due to the lack of democratic tradition, needed to instill a culture of political compromise. Thus, the dissolution of Parliament as a 'threat' was considered at the same time as an 'incitement' to achieve political compromise.

Unfortunately, Albania managed to elect the President of the Republic with political consensus only once, in 2002. Afterwards, the instinct of political imposition and subjugation dominated, until the constitutional changes of 2008, which were accompanied by a change in the election formula and a weakening of the role of the President of the Republic.

Kosovo is treading on a minefield. The challenges of democratic state consolidation and full integration of Kosovo into the Euro-Atlantic family are innumerable. They require political compromises, not impulsive actions or mutual impositions.

Kosovo is heading towards elections for the third time in a year and a half.
A scenario that should have been avoided!