Prime Minister Albin Kurti has declared victory in Kosovo’s parliamentary election, but the results mean he must now try to form a coalition government.
Preliminary results released late on Sunday showed the premier’s leftist Vetevendosje party in first place with 41.99 percent. The vote was widely viewed as a referendum on Kurti, who has been at odds with his Western allies over relations with neighbouring Serbia.
With 73 percent of votes counted, the opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo was set to come second with 22.68 percent of the vote. The Democratic League of Kosovo took 17.9 percent.
The results leave Kurti needing partners in order to govern. He had previously said he would not take part in a coalition, but appeared to walk that back.
“We are the first party, the winning party that will create the next government,” he told reporters. “We will continue to finish the work that we have started.”
Al Jazeera’s Maja Blazevska, reporting from Pristina, said “Kosovo will go back to having a coalition government.”
Serbia dominates
Kosovars had headed to the polling stations on Sunday to elect a new parliament and cabinet in a contentious race that also focused on the economy and corruption, although relations with Serbia have long been the biggest issue in the country’s political debate.
It was the ninth parliamentary vote since the end of the 1998-99 war that pushed Serbian forces out of the self-declared republic.
A key test for Kurti, the vote will elect 120 legislators to the assembly, determining who leads Kosovo’s stalled negotiations on normalising ties with Belgrade.
Kurti’s left-wing Vetevendosje, or Self-Determination Movement party, which has sought to dismantle remaining Serbian institutions in Kosovo, was the frontrunner. But the party must now seek cooperation to form a cabinet.
The candidates include the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), whose main leaders are accused of war crimes at The Hague tribunal, and the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), the republic’s oldest party.
Another is the Alliance for Kosovo’s Future of former Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, which won 7.5 percent of the vote.
The opposition parties have made big-ticket pledges to increase public salaries and pensions, improve education and healthcare services and fight poverty.
Kosovo, with a population of 1.6 million, is among the poorest in Europe with an annual gross domestic product of less than 6,000 euros ($6,200) per person.
‘Critical for Kosovo’s future’
Kurti, whose government is the first in Kosovo’s history to finish its full term in office, has had a turbulent rule, marked by regular unrest between Serbs and ethnic Albanians.
Tensions spiked after negotiations backed by the European Union and the United States between Kosovo and Serbia all but collapsed in March 2023.
In the aftermath, NATO peacekeepers were assaulted by rioting Serbs, a deadly armed standoff in the north sent regional tensions soaring, and an explosion targeting a canal vital to Kosovo’s power plants late last year saw Kurti blaming Belgrade.
Kurti also drew Western criticism for controversial measures he took last year, such as a ban on using the Serbian dinar and transfers from Serbia to Kosovo’s ethnic Serb minority members who depend on Belgrade’s social services and payments.
The US, the EU and the NATO-led stabilisation force KFOR have urged the government in Pristina to refrain from unilateral actions, fearing the revival of interethnic conflict.
While Kurti retains a strong support base, his opponents have denounced him for the fraying ties with the US and the EU.
Shpend Kursani, a lecturer at the University of Tartu told Al Jazeera that voters most identify Kurti with “anti-corruption, national dignity and being – at least from a Balkan perspective – an honest politician”.
Opposition parties, however, blame Kurti’s willingness to confront Serbia as costing the country support and funding from the international community, even as he was able to secure the sale of antitank Javelin missiles from the US, Kursani said.
“It’s the same with Turkiye; he purchased drones and what not, so the support from international communities is a bit mixed,” Kursani said. “He’s largely not corrupt… and it’s very difficult [for outside powers] to manage these small country leaders if they are not corrupt.”
KFOR has increased its presence in Kosovo and added more forces for the election. A team of 100 observers from the EU, 18 from the Council of Europe, and about 1,600 others from international or local organisations will also monitor the vote.
