In an extraordinary session late Thursday, held just hours before the expiration of the constitutional deadline for electing the president, the Assembly halted the election process due to the lack of the necessary quorum. To elect the president, 80 votes must be cast in the first two rounds of voting and at least 61 in the third. 66 members of the ruling coalition were present in the hall on Thursday, while those from the opposition were absent. The previous session called to review the constitutional amendments, forwarded by President Vjosa Osmani for the popular vote for the president, also failed due to the lack of a quorum. After the closing of the second session, the Speaker of the Assembly, Albulena Haxhiu, addressed the Constitutional Court with a request to suspend the constitutional deadlines for electing the president.
With only 66 MPs present in the plenary hall, the Assembly paused at the opening of the session to elect the new president, which took place in the final hours of the constitutional deadline.
In the extraordinary session late Thursday, MPs from the governing coalition led by the Vetevendosje Movement (LVV) were present in the hall, while those from the opposition and the main Serbian party, the Serbian List, were absent.
After the attendance vote, Parliament Speaker Albulena Haxhiu adjourned the session and announced that this session will continue in the future if the conditions are met.
"In this case, there is no quorum to continue with the vote. Several times in this session, I appealed to the deputies who are absent to come and be present in accordance with the Constitution and the judgments of the Constitutional Court. The situation is that they are not present. Consequently, we do not have 2/3 of the deputies," she said.
After this, Haxhiu announced that he immediately addressed the Constitutional Court with a request to suspend the constitutional deadlines for electing the president.
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Haxhiu asks the Constitutional Court to suspend the constitutional deadline for electing the president
"We have just addressed the Constitutional Court regarding the assessment of the constitutionality of the procedure for electing the President of the Republic of Kosovo. Also, through this request, we have requested that the Constitutional Court impose a temporary measure to suspend the constitutional deadline related to the procedure for electing the President, until the publication of the judgment. I have also notified President Vjosa Osmani-Sadriu regarding this," Haxhiu announced on Facebook.
The head of the LVV Parliamentary Group, Arbërie Nagavci, said that by not being present in the hall, the tendency of the Democratic Party (PDK) and the Democratic League (LDK), which are the two largest opposition entities, is to make it impossible to elect the president and send the country to elections.
"Their approach only proves once again the tendency of these parties to make it impossible to elect the president and send the country to elections. We made all our efforts. The MPs were here, despite their obligation. We had no notification from them, but they consciously did not participate in the vote for the president," she said.
Shortly before the start of the session, two candidates for president were presented in the Assembly, Glauk Konjufca, who was expelled from the LVV the day before, and Fatmire Mulhaxha-Kollçaku.
A day earlier, Haxhiu had said that when the session for the election of the president is called, the 60-day deadline begins to run. She had emphasized that it is not determined what happens if the president is elected after the 6th. According to her, in this case, another terrain is entered, which she called "uncharted."
Between two sessions held on Thursday, the leader of the LDK, Lumir Abdixhiku, said that after midnight on Thursday, when the constitutional deadline for electing the president officially ended, Kosovo will once again enter the phase of early elections. He added that his party was ready for an agreement and consensus for a non-partisan candidate, but "this has not been accepted by other political parties."
"Kosovo is entering a new electoral process at 00:00. The LDK awaits the decree for the dissolution of the Assembly and consultations on setting the date of the extraordinary elections as soon as possible. We were fully prepared for consensus, this readiness did not match the intentions of the other parties. We consider the current session to be mono-partisan. We have two candidates from one party, so consensus, unity, is not achieved. We have been in a position to offer the agreement that was offered, and ready for consensus, but no name has been offered to us," he said before the start of the session for the president.
The election of the president by the people remains on the shelf.
Before the one on the president, the Assembly held another one on Thursday evening on the constitutional amendments, which President Osmani forwarded to the Assembly regarding the election of the president of the state by direct vote by the people. Their approval also failed due to the lack of a quorum.
Any constitutional amendment requires the approval of two-thirds of all members of the Assembly, including two-thirds of all members from non-majority communities. In this session, there were 93 members of the Assembly, while all nine lawmakers from the Serb party, Lista Srpska, were absent.
"The conditions have not been met... we will adjourn the session here," Haxhiu said.
In the debate that preceded the confirmation of the insufficient presence of MPs, representatives of parliamentary parties expressed positions for and against the amendments proposed by President Osmani.
LVV lawmakers have come out in support of the proposed constitutional changes.
"Experience has shown us that the presidential election process in the Assembly has often been accompanied by unprincipled political agreements and we have also had situations of institutional deadlock... If the president is voted for by the citizens, then there is more fair support from the people and greater democratic legitimacy... Therefore, as the Vetëvendosje Movement, as I mentioned, we support the amendments and I invite all MPs to support this initiative," said Nagavci of LVV during the first session of the day.
PDK leader Bedri Hamza also expressed support for the election of the president by the people, but he added that this issue requires serious treatment and not an expedited procedure.
"In principle, we are for the president to be elected by the people, but this requires serious treatment. It must necessarily be established within the legal framework, within the Constitution of the Republic, within the procedures, the rules. The regulations have not been respected, it is not in accordance with what the Constitutional Court has said. We cannot speak tonight in a meritorious manner. Tonight I have expected, even much earlier, that Kosovo will have an elected president, and not for it to come in these last hours of the mandate for the deputies to be challenged with an extraordinary session without material. In principle, we are for it, but it requires treatment in accordance with the regulations and laws," he said.
Even the leader of the LDK, Lumir Abdixhiku, said that he supports the amendments, but added that the constitutional changes made overnight "have no benefits."
"LDK supports such amendments in principle, because they are in our ideological conviction. The President of Kosovo should be elected directly by the citizens. Changing the Constitution overnight, believe me, it will not be fruitful. LDK supports them and votes for them. Rewrite those speeches they wrote for you once again. Two important issues to keep in mind: these constitutional amendments were also drafted by LDK in 2011. These amendments were sent to the Constitutional Court by us, because they are ideological convictions that date back to the historic president, Dr. Ibrahim Rugova, so the president should be elected by the people. This concept requires a new constitutional arrangement, more work is needed, but let's say that we are overcoming these", he said.
Abdixhiku emphasized that despite his support for the constitutional changes, they cannot come into force before six months and that he sees this action as nothing more than a political maneuver.
"In those amendments that you have before you, it clearly states that they will enter into force six months after they are voted on by the Assembly. And we are 2-3 hours away from the deadline. It would have been good if we had used this time more wisely, but these are political maneuvers of the night. The night does not have blessings, which is why the LDK supports and votes for them," he added.
The extraordinary session on the constitutional amendments was called just hours after President Osmani sent them to the Assembly and they were approved in an accelerated procedure in the Legislation Committee. In this Committee, the amendments were approved with 6 votes in favor, while two PDK deputies voted against them.
The vote in the Commission was preceded by a clash between ruling and opposition MPs.
The Chairman of the Committee, Përparim Gruda, who is a PDK MP, has qualified the amendments as untimely, while describing the "rush" in voting on them as a slide towards authoritarianism.
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And, LVV deputies have emphasized that it does not matter that the changes are almost 15 years old, but that they were proposed on the last day of the deadline to elect a new president.
With these proposed changes, the president of the state would be elected by direct popular vote. They have been on the shelf since 2011, when the Constitutional Court issued a ruling, rejecting some proposals and approving others.
While arguing for sending these amendments to the Assembly, President Osmani mentioned the successive failures to elect the head of state.
"Direct elections for president! Seeing the successive failures in the election of the president, I have just submitted to the Assembly the constitutional amendments for direct elections of the president, which were drafted by the Commission for the Amendment of the Constitution in 2011. I invite all political parties to vote for these constitutional amendments. From now on, let the people speak!" Osmani wrote on social networks.
This initiative of Osmani was immediately supported by Parliament Speaker Haxhiu, who called on all parties to vote for the amendments.
According to the Constitution, any change in its content requires the approval of two-thirds of all members of the Assembly, including two-thirds of all members from minority communities. Amendments to the Constitution can be approved by the Assembly only after the Constitutional Court has assessed that the amendments do not diminish any right defined in Chapter II of the Constitution. In case the President has followed up on the 2011 amendments, they have already been addressed by the Constitutional Court, which has found that the article that determines the election of the President by the people constitutes an improvement of the rights of citizens.
Calls for another presidential candidate
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Albin Kurti and LVV's first nominee for president, Konjufca, expressed their expectation for the proposal of another candidate from among the opposition parties.
"We wish, we believe, and we hope for a second candidacy in order to fulfill the constitutional requirement for competition," Kurti emphasized.
Point 2 of Article 86 of the Constitution specifies that “The election of the President of the Republic of Kosovo shall be held no later than thirty (30) days before the end of the term of office of the current President.”
President Osmani has expressed her intention to serve another term, as her current one officially expires on April 4.
Konjufca, who currently serves as Minister of Foreign Affairs, has said that he would vote for Osmani's re-election.
"There are many better people than me, there are many more prepared people than me, let them nominate one. Yes, let them nominate Vjosa Osmani, so Vjosa Osmani or anyone else, I will vote for him myself," he said on Thursday.
The governing coalition led by Vetëvendosje has 66 MPs in the Assembly and has had the opportunity to nominate one more candidate. The head of the LVV Parliamentary Group, Nagavci, said that her party has provided the necessary signatures for candidacy to Osman, PDK and LDK.
For a person to run for president, at least 30 signatures of deputies are needed. For the election of the president, 80 votes must be cast in the first two rounds of voting. This quota would be met by the participation of PDK or LDK deputies in the hall.
PDK's Hamza insisted on an agreement to vote for the candidate who must be from his party.
"Without a political agreement, there is no candidate. We have requested a political agreement, we have made our offer. The political agreement, which means that the candidate proposed by the Democratic Party will be president," he emphasized on Thursday.
The possibility of continuing talks with Kurti has been rejected by LDK leader Abdixhiku, calling the process compromised.
"We agreed that there should be no unilateral actions, that there should be consensus, this is the way and then the truth is that the process has now been compromised, because last night I understood from the statements of the Office of the President that while we were in talks, they went and demanded impeachment for the opposition. So on one hand you are at the table with someone, on the other hand you are making impeachment scenarios. This is a serious compromise of the process, so I see no reason to have other meetings on this issue," Abdixhiku said on Thursday.
The chairman of the Parliamentary Group of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK), Besnik Tahiri, has criticized the LVV for its slow progress in the process.
"We don't have any candidates, no one knows when the session will be held, and no MP is informed about what will happen. Today is the last day. We cannot comment on the news that appears in the media about the trust, any comment that is made without having any documents in front of it is frivolous. The country has come to us on this holiday, in extremely experimental circumstances, total frivolity," he said.
The issue of the 30 signatures required to accept a presidential candidate's candidacy had sparked a long-distance clash between the Presidency and the Government the day before.
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At a press conference on Wednesday, Nagavcipati said that Vetëvendosje had offered Osmani signatures to run, but this claim was denied by the president's chief of staff, Learta Hollaj. In an interview with KTV's "Interaktiv" on Wednesday, she said that Vetëvendosje's offer of 33 signatures, which would allow the president to run for another term, would be accepted if the ruling party's 57 votes for Osmani's re-election were also offered.
President Osmani's term ends on April 4. Article 86 of the Constitution specifies that the election of the president must take place no later than 30 days before the end of the current president's term. And Article 82 of the Constitution states that one of the cases when the Assembly can be dissolved is if, within 60 days from the date of the start of the election procedure, the President of the Republic is not elected.
