Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti resigned from his post as prime minister on Tuesday, announcing his decision in a letter to the Secretariat of the Kosovo Assembly.
The resignation came after the proceedings of the constitutive session of the ninth convocation of the Kosovo Parliament began, which was interrupted on Tuesday. According to Kosovo law, officials in the executive branch are required to resign in order to take up their parliamentary mandates in the procedure for forming a new government.
The deputies of the new Kosovo Assembly did not take the oath at the constitutive session, elect the Speaker of the Assembly and vote for the new government.
At the session, chaired by the oldest deputy in the hall, Avni Dehari, with 119 deputies present out of a total of 120, the report of the Commission for the Verification of Mandates and Quorum was not approved.
The temporary committee submitted the report to the deputies, asking them to vote on it, in order to verify the mandates of the 120 deputies elected based on the list certified by the Central Election Commission (CEC).
With 52 votes in favor, 46 against and 11 abstentions, the deputies of the Self-Determination Movement and the Social Democratic Initiative voted in favor of the report, while the deputies of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) and the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) voted against. The deputies of the Serbian List abstained.
After a break, the chairman announced the adjournment of the session.
“Under these circumstances, we are forced to adjourn the session and inform the president in writing how to proceed,” said Dehari.
According to the elected deputy from the parliamentary group of the Self-Determination Movement, Faton Peci, this is a new circumstance in the constitutional and legal sense, and accordingly the chairman of the session decided to address the president of Kosovo for the next steps.
The constitutive session of the Assembly was convened on 1 April by the President of Kosovo, Vjosa Osmani, after a meeting with the leaders of political parties.
The appointment of the Speaker of the Assembly and the Deputy Speaker will pave the way for the process of forming a new government in Kosovo.
The vote by the three Social Democratic Initiative MPs on the report of the Commission for the Verification of Mandates and Quorum was seen as a sign that the party would support the formation of a new government led by the current Prime Minister Albin Kurti.
The first party to emerge from the February 9 elections, the Vetevendosje Movement, which has the first right to form a new government, won 48 seats in the Assembly and needs cooperation from MPs from other parties to get 61 votes to form a new government, AA writes.
