Kosovo goes to polls in bid to end political impasse
Kosovo heads to the polls with nationalist Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s party seeking a majority to end a year-long political deadlock that has paralyzed parliament and delayed international funding for Europe’s youngest nation.
This vote was the second for Kosovo to be held in 2025, after Kurti’s Vetevendosje party failed to gain a majority in February.
Months of failed coalition talks led President Vjosa Osmani to dissolve parliament and call early elections in November.
Failure to form a government and reopen the parliament will prolong the crisis at a critical time.
Lawmakers must elect a new president in April and approve a one-billion-euro ($1.8 billion) loan agreement from the European Union and the World Bank that is due to expire in the coming months.
The Balkan country’s opposition parties have refused to govern with Kurti, criticizing his relations with Western allies and his approach to Kosovo’s ethnically divided north, where the Serb minority lives. Kurti blames the opposition for the impasse.
To sway voters, Kurti promised an extra month’s salary a year for public sector workers, a billion euros ($A1.8 billion) a year in capital investment and a new investigative unit to combat organized crime. Opposition parties also focused on improving living standards.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 with US support, including a NATO bombing campaign against Serbian forces trying to suppress an uprising by the 90 percent ethnic Albanian majority in 1999.
Despite international support, the country of 1.6 million people struggles with poverty, instability and organized crime.
Tensions with Serbia flared in 2023, leading the EU to impose sanctions on Kosovo.
The bloc said it would lift these measures following the election of ethnic Serb mayors in northern municipalities in December, but they are likely to cost Kosovo hundreds of millions of euros.
