In the period which followed the Dayton Peace Accords and for more than a decade later, international instructors examined the elections through the old-yugoslavia for symptoms of hope. The slightest proof of the sharing of ethnic electricity, inter-party consensus or political diversity has been seized by optimistic commentators, deprived of details of positive change. This last series of parliamentary elections in Kosovo is no exception. Alas, “the peace agreement” is the egg of a parish priest. The Rambouillet agreement failed despite its expensive pillars of peacekeeping and community reconstruction. Even the Ohrid 2023 agreement, a normalization route, is politically defective. Thus, the climate of governance in Kosovo, as in the states of the successor, is an uncomfortable dead end.
The Central Electoral Commission (CEC / KQZ) announced at the start of the campaign for the 2025 elections: “We are there for all … We defend professional elections through the territory and remain without prejudice to celebration.” This was largely accepted. There are no systemic electoral violations, but as a law professor at the University of Pristina that was observed, Kosovo is in itself “a living irregularity. It is a state which must take a verification of the rain on its legitimacy and even its viability every day ”. The last legislative elections took place on February 9, 2025 to elect the 120 members of the Kosovo parliamentary assembly. The preliminary results have shown that no party had won a majority, the Prime Minister Albin Kurti Winner VetëVendosjejet. As the call processes have concluded, the confirmed results are almost the same.
Given the sensitive historical-ethnic geography of the region and the brutality of post-conflict policy, perhaps the best that can be hoped for is the relative absence of full-fledged violence in the political system. The professor adds: “Without prescribed violations but not exactly without violation … Kosovo legislators are dedicated to manipulating their exercise in electoral regulations to remain a thrill in law …” Kosovo 2025 surveys were not marked by large -scale acts of political intimidation or corruption, although the nomenclature of Kosovan’s policy or a corruption. No parliamentary entity, forged in the atmosphere of atrocities in wartime led by all parties, could hope to escape criticism.
In the 2021 elections, Lëvizja Vetëvendosje (LVV) won 58 seats, thus forming a coalition with minority parties to form a government. He turned out to be the first firm since the independence of Kosovo in 2008 to finish a complete four -year mandate. The 120 members of the assembly are elected by a ballot to the list open in proportional representation for a four -year term, with 20 sets specifically reserved for national minorities. The seats of the parliamentary assembly of Kosovo are allocated using the Sainte-Laguë method with an electoral threshold of 5%. Like a spokesperson for the CEC said to me: “So far, this process has been respected and widely accelerated without worry …”
According to the Constitution of Kosovo, the legislative elections must be held at the latest 30 days and at the beginning of 45 days before the expiration of the mandate of the outgoing Parliament. Thus, on July 31, 2024, President Vjosa Osmani called on the leaders of political parties to an advisory meeting concerning the planning of the next elections. In his invitation, Osmani stressed that, in accordance with the Constitution and the Electoral Code, “the elections must take place between January 26 and February 16, 2025 …”
Opposition personalities, including Lumir Abdixhiku of the Kosovo Democratic League (LDK), Ramush Haradinaj of the Alliance for the future of Kosovo (AAK) and Memli Krasniqi of the Kosovo Democratic Party (PDK), pleaded for the elections on January 26, while Mimaza Kusari-Lala The Orie to Into-Ory to Kusari-Lila of the Orie 16 Orie to Kusari-Lila from the Orlef. February, citing logistics concerns. The Prime Minister and Head of Vetëvendosje (LVV) Albin Kurti did not attend the consultation due to a prior commitment. In conclusion, on August 16, OSMANI announced a compromise – in particular that the elections would be scheduled for February 9, 2025. Some 28 political entities submitted requests, including 20 political parties, five coalitions, two civil initiatives and an independent candidate, with a healthy score of 1,280 candidates appointed. The CEC suggested that it showed “acceptable political adhesion on the process …”
However, on December 23, 2024, some potential forks on the road materialized while the CEC disqualified the Serbian list of elections due to the remarks made by the leader Zlatan Elek, which they criticized as “of a nationalist nature”. The party appealed the decision, the appellant “institutional and political violence” against the Serbian minority. On December 25, 2024, the Committee for Complaints and Elections Calls (ECAP) accepted the appeal and asked the CEC to certify the Serbian list. The future atmosphere was (nevertheless) embittered.
In August 2024, the guiding parties of Vetëvendosje, Guxo and Alternativa announced that they would share the same electoral list, the outgoing Prime Minister Kurti putting the list. On March 27, 2024, the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) appointed Bedri Hamza, mayor of South-Mitrovica and former Minister of Finance, for the Prime Minister. On November 3, Hamza announced that their slogan would be “Kosovo could do better”. Hamza also announced its platform, the economy being the absolute priority. In December 2023, the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) published its platform, “The New Road”. In July 2024, the LDK and the PSHDK Christian minority party announced that they would share the same electoral list. This is the “Kosovo style” but not exactly evidence of post-aging polinalism.
In January 2024, the opposition Parties Alliance for the future of Kosovo (AAK), the Social Democratic Initiative (NISMA) and the Kosovo Conservative List (LKK) announced that they would appear together in a coalition led by Ramush Haradinaj, the chief of the AAK and former Prime Minister. The Social Democratic Party of Kosovo (PSD) was invited to this pact but rejected for ideological reasons. Finally, this coalition published their platform emphasizing foreign relations and the objective of joining NATO and the EU. The new alliance of Kosovo (AKR), the Justice Party (PD) and the members of the LVV assembly in power have agreed that a “family list” coalition formed as opposition to the attempted party in power to increase the LGBTQ rights in Kosovo, in particular the proposed civil code which would legalize homosexual civil unions.
Following the government’s formation, Prime Minister Kurti said that internal policy was now going to have priority about dialogue with Serbia. It is a murmur that deserved a political rocket, and was followed by flagrant intransigence actions, such as the ban on Serbian license plates used by Serbian citizens of Kosovo. This attracted riots in northern Serbian Kosovo as well as the condemnation of Serbia, which threatened military action. On September 30, 2021, the EU negotiated a temporary agreement between Serbia and Kosovo, remaining political violence.
In July 2022, the Kosovan government announced that Serbian citizens entering Kosovo will receive entrance and exit documents, arousing road barricade by local Serbs in Kosovo. Many Serbian politicians and police came out of their cooperation with Kosovan institutions. It was another rocket on already trembling ethnic relationships.
The sensitive question of marriage and civil partnerships for same -sex couples has seen other clashes in the assembly of Kosovo. In March 2022, the Civil Code project did not succeed in the first reading due to strong opposition, in particular with regard to the potential legalization of civil partnerships. The religious climate in Kosovo was temporarily held on a cliff. In April 2024, Prime Minister Kurti announced his intention to pass a new civil code in May, which included provisions for civil partnerships. This would have done Kosovo only the third country of the Western Balkans (joining Croatia and Montenegro) to grant such recognition. This process has been delayed indefinitely. It remains to be seen whether progress on this subject or in other controversial reforms can be made after the electronics. This is likely to constitute a future “acid test” for the sharing of Kosovan power.
As for the polls, the EU has aligned 100 observers led by the French deputy Nathalie Loison increased by the Council of Europe. EU monitors welcomed the election as “peaceful and competitive” while avoiding the negative electoral environment – the EU thus criticizing the presence of “hard rhetoric reflecting deep political divisions”. The EU also regretted the pressurization of voters “depending on Serbian social assistance or employment in the institutions managed by Serbia in the municipalities of Kosovo-Serb”. Conversely, they condemned the rhetoric of Vetëvendosje against the Serbs. The EU also observed that the American special envoy Richard Grenell had involuntarily demonstrated a potential supporter by Kurti names as “an unreliable partner of the United States …” The EU verdict on the survey is therefore mixed.
No party has won a global majority, Kurti’s Vetëvendosje party receiving around 41% of the vote. The official release of the official was hampered by failures on the CEC website. This has generated conspiracy theories. However, the CEC methodology is still largely considered robust. Kurti has announced that he “continues to faithfully serve all those who voted or challenged the 2025 elections”. Kurti turned out to be a steel politician, but the creation of political coalitions is an eternal challenge. More than thirty years since its creation, the Assembly remains unstable. To this extent, it is a metaphor of the Republic itself. As in Latin “Cogito, Ergo Sum”, the “first principle” of the philosophy of René Descartes, survival is perhaps the best that can be hoped. The future political landscape requires juggling the potentially seismic ethnic plates of Kosovo.
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