Parties launch blame campaign for failure of presidential negotiations

The parties will not use the six days remaining to elect the president to find a solution, as their representatives declared that this is a closed issue. They attributed the failure to each other.

Prime Minister Albin Kurti blamed the failure of the negotiations to elect the president on the opposition parties, who he said want to take more power than the people have given them.

Kurti said on Tuesday that he had offered the Democratic Party the post of speaker of parliament in exchange for votes for the presidency and the position of deputy speaker of the Assembly. He has also made the same offer to the Democratic League, to which he has also offered the opportunity for co-government.

When talking about PDK, he said that it has been generous, since, as he said, four Vetëvendosje candidates received more votes in the last elections than PDK leader Bedri Hamza.

"What can I do with the election result that they gave me 51.1 percent. They don't even have the votes to collect signatures for a candidate. 22 PDK deputies are not enough to even apply. Besides, have you ever applied for a job? Imagine not having the documents, and you're saying: 'Can I get a job'. But you don't even have the documents to apply," Kurti said. "You mean give it to him (the right to propose a candidate for president)? But the people didn't give it to him, brother. How can I give it to him when the people didn't give it to him?" 

Calling the offers he has made to the opposition generous, he said they should be asked how they can refuse them with the numbers they have. According to him, offering a position like that of the speaker of parliament to PDK and LDK is a "big concession", as he compared the votes of the leaders of these two parties with the MPs of VV.

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"So on December 28, we held the elections, and that night we saw the result. It has never been clearer. These 120 deputies must fully functionalize the institutions. We have an Assembly, we have a government, we must also have a president," he said. "Accepting the result means that PDK understands that there are 22 deputies, they are one-third of the majority, and you must also understand my difficult position, because LVV has reached 51.1 percent of the popular vote and this is an unprecedented result, and therefore in 2026 we must behave in accordance with this result."

But, despite the result, Vetevendosje does not have the necessary votes to elect the president either. This requires 80 votes in the first two rounds, while Vetevendosje has 57 MPs and 66 together with its coalition partners.

The Deputy Leader of the Democratic League, Lutfi Haziri, called Kurti's statements a political game. According to him, the Prime Minister's approach is keeping the country in a constant crisis.

"Then it was like that, why did we have to be called to the meeting? With the very fact that we are the solution, we were invited and we have shown ourselves pragmatic, we have shown ourselves cooperative and we have cooperated until the end to give the country a president. We have neither said we deserve to be invited, nor have we asked to be invited," Haziri countered.

And PDK chairman Bedri Hamza said that the president's case for his party is closed and accused Kurti of lacking seriousness. 

"That work was done. The Steering Council meeting was held. The Steering Council is a decision-making body within the Democratic Party of Kosovo. This topic was discussed at length, it was concluded that there was no seriousness from the winning party and from Mr. Kurti to give the country a president, the positive approach of the Democratic Party of Kosovo was not handled correctly," said Hamza. 

And the leader of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, Ramush Haradinaj, has warned of government actions for electoral purposes.

"He has already prepared a financial package that he intends to release just a few days before the elections, with a pension plus, half the salary for employees in the private sector and some other bonuses. He has found the formula to not work for 4 years," said Haradinaj.

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The constitutional deadline for electing the president expires next Tuesday.

On Monday, Kurti's fifth meeting with the LDK leader also proved unsuccessful. 

Abdixhiku has announced that he has rejected two offers from Kurti, one that envisaged him being included in the Government as Deputy Prime Minister and LDK having 4 ministers, and the other that the post of Speaker of Parliament would go to Abdixhiku's party, and the deputy speaker would go to Vetëvendosje.

Meanwhile, PDK, after the Steering Council meeting on Monday night, declared its contribution to the presidential negotiations closed. The party leader refused to meet with Kurti, while saying that he too had been offered the position of speaker of parliament.

After the failure of the session to elect the president, on March 5, Vjosa Osmani, then president, dissolved the Assembly through a decree. This decision was welcomed by the opposition parties. However, this decree, with the ruling of March 25, was repealed by the Constitutional Court, stating that the deputies have until April 28 to elect the new president.

The constitutional deadline for electing a president ends on April 28. The passage of this deadline without a solution means early elections within 45 days. 

Therefore, if the president is not elected, the elections will be held on June 7th at the latest.
According to the Constitution, the president of Kosovo is elected with two-thirds of the votes in the first two rounds or with 61 votes in the third round, but 80 deputies are needed in the chamber for the session to be held.

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The Vetëvendosje Movement has proposed two names, Glauk Konjufca and Fatmire Mulhaxha, while there have been no other names mentioned by opposition parties.

If Kosovo goes to elections, it will be the third parliamentary election in less than 15 months. The other two were held last year, the regular ones in February and the snap ones in December.