Kosovo Parliament With Numerous Cuts and Stakes

Representatives of parliamentary political subjects have differing views if the Kosovo Assembly is functional.

Memli Krasniqi, head of the Parliamentary Group of the Democratic Party of Kosovo, this party under the pre-election coalition with the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo and the Initiative, which have created the parliamentary majority and the country's government in agreement with the New Kosovo Alliance, tells Radio Free Europe that it is still early to assess whether the Parliament is functional or not.

“His work has just begun, and normally there is the arena of major political battles between power and opposition. In this case, with a more powerful opposition than in the previous mandate, there is a tendency to have a situation and a different behavior than we are used to having”.

“I believe that the Kosovo Assembly will play its important role, in the sense of providing support for projects on the side of power, but also in the sense of correcting the Government by the opposition”, Krasniqi says.

Albulen Haxhiu, deputy of Kosovo's Parliament by the Vetevendosje Movement, the main opposition subject, says the Parliament's work does not have the normal course and for that, it blames the political subjects in power, as well as the country's prime minister, Ramush Haradinaj.

It's been a long time since elections, and we, too, took a few months when we contracted the Assembly. Instead of continuing now the normal draft of the Parliament, facing political positions in the Assembly, as well as envisioning parliamentary republics, this is not happening, for the fact that, apparently, the Haradinaj government plans to crush or drown the parliamentary republic. We have also called at the Assembly's chairmanship meeting to continue with the plenary hearings, but this has been opposed by subjects that are in power”, says MP Hadziu.

Arben Gashi, Kosovo Parliament deputy from the opposition Democratic League of Kosovo party, tells Radio Free Europe that the Assembly has not yet entered the intensive phase of work.

It is the normal time procedure for the government, until it comes with its proposals, since all laws in our parliamentary practice, or at least most of them, come from the government, then it remains to be seen in a few days. But the first few days are not very optimistic”.

Taking into account the fact that we've had several months of blockade in the Assembly, and so, if we take into account the fact that Government has very little support in the Assembly, I expect we will have difficulty passing laws and making decisions in the Parliament”, Gashi points out.

The Kosovo Assembly, which began its constitutional session on August 3rd, until the election of the Speaker of the Parliament and its deputy chairmanships, on 7 nights, has stalled this ongoing session interruption process for 6 times. The Parliament's breakthroughs have continued even after the country's government was elected on 9 September.

The extraordinary session sought by opposition parties, the Vetevendosje Movement and the Democratic League of Kosovo, launched on September 10th, was interrupted due to the lack of hearing of ruling party deputies and the government cabinet.

Opposition parties, the Democratic League of Kosovo and the Vetevendosje Movement, had called for the Assembly of the Parliament's Headship on 11 September. This meeting has not been held until September 20. However, even this meeting was interrupted because the opposition and ruling parties' reconciliation were not achieved so that the continuation of the extraordinary session could be established.

Representatives of the ruling subjects have blamed opposition subjects for abandoning the Assembly of Headship of the Parliament on September 20th, saying such situations are setting the campaign's launch for local elections. Opposition party representatives have stressed that such statements are only a lack of arguments on the part of the ruling political subjects.