Kosovo president sets December 28 as date for snap vote

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PRISTINA (Reuters) -Kosovo’s president, Vjosa Osmani, set December 28 as the date for an early parliamentary election on Thursday, after the ruling Vetevendosje party of Prime Minister Albin Kurti failed to secure enough votes in parliament to form a government.

The election will be the second in the space of a year, after Kosovo’s parliament failed to form the government following a February vote, which Vetevendosje won but did not secure enough seats to rule alone.

The need for a fresh election will delay much-needed funding for Europe’s newest country, Osmani said.

She said that she had tried to convince the parties to go back to parliament for a final session to vote through next year’s budget, some deals with the European Union and loans with the World Bank and other international lenders.

“We are talking about more than a billion euros that will now stay frozen,” she told reporters.

Osmani dissolved parliament and called on parties to conduct an election campaign with the “highest political standards.”

“Our citizens urgently need stable and responsible institutions that make decisions in their interest,” she said.

Opposition parties have refused to govern with Kurti, criticising his handling of Kosovo’s relations with its Western allies and his actions in Kosovo’s ethnically divided north, where a Serb minority lives.

Kurti, a leftist and Albanian nationalist, came to power in 2021, when a coalition run by Vetevendosje won more than 50% of the votes and secured a seven-seat majority in parliament. 

Kosovo gained independence from Serbia in 2008 with backing from the United States after a 78-day NATO bombing campaign against Serbian forces in 1999.

(Reporting by Fatos Bytyci; Writing by Ivana Sekularac; Editing by Alex Richardson and Ros Russell)