Kurti to respond to Thaci's request for mandate

This has been confirmed by incumbent government spokesman Progress Kryeziu, who said Prime Minister Kurti will respond to President Thaci's (requisite) letters.

Thaci's request for the mandate's appointment for the new government is based on the vote of no-confidence to the Kurti Government on March 25th in the assembly, since this government is considered to be in resignations, respectively.

Kosovo's president, held separate meetings with leaders of all political parties last week, but based on the Constitution and the outcome of the 6 October 2019 parliamentary elections, the possibility of the mandated prime minister's appointment offered the Vetevendosje Movement as the winner of the elections.

Kryeziu said that at the moment, the government's priority and Prime Minister Kurti remains the commitment to confronting the body's coronary pandemic.

Taking into account the vital importance of the battle against the COVID-19 virus, the prime minister's first priority and all government is focused on managing this pandemic, in defense of the life and health of all citizens of the Republic of Kosovo. In the face of this challenge, any political or party issues should be considered of secondary and digestive importance”, Kryeziu stressed for Radio Free Europe.

But, also Thaci, Kryeziu stressed, will have Kurti's answer to how Vetevendosje leader sees the solution to the situation created following the vote on no confidence in the government in the assembly.

“against all, Mr. Kurti, in his quality as chairman of the Vetevendosje Movement, will find an adequate and not distant opportunity to analyze, with proper care, the letters sent by the president, as well as to respond to them”, Kryeziu said.

In last week's communication between Thaci and Kurti, he had asked the president to consider only one option, that of distributing the assembly and announcing the elections, but after the entire situation created with the new coronary has ended.

Constitution

In Article 100 of the Kosovo Constitution, it is said that if the no-confidence motion is voted for the government as a whole, the government is considered in resignation. Article 82, however, stipulates that the assembly can be distributed by the president following the government's successful vote of no-confidence.

But Article 95 of the Kosovo Constitution writes that “if the prime minister resigns or for other reasons, his post/her remains at large, the government falls, and the president of the Republic of Kosovo, in consultation with political parties or the coalition that has won the majority in the assembly, mandates the new candidate, to form the” government.

That definition is believed to give the right, at least the first time, to Vetevendosje as the winning party to propose the new prime minister's mandate.

However, Kurti insists that the solution be found in the first option -- that of distributing the assembly and announcing early elections. However, he claims that even the assembly distribution option and election proclamation should wait for the conclusion of the pandemic phase announced due to the spread of the coronary.

The collapse of the Government of Kosovo in the time of COVID-19 has been conveyed with reactions from both the United States and the European Union. As the common denominator of their calls, it was for political leaders in Pristina to find constitutional solutions.

The government saw Vetevendosje?

The rejection of the assembly's distribution option and election proclamation would bring about the option of creating a new government, but likely, without the winning election party, which itself has been declared to be not an option for involvement in the calculations of forming the government without elections.

In calculations that could eventually take out “game” Kurti and Vetevendosje, predicted that the president after offering the possibility of forming the Vetevendosje government as the winning party of the elections, if the latter fails to form the new government, the second time be based on his disrepute, meaning that he would be assured by other parties that they have secured at least 61 deputies' votes in the assembly for forming the new government.

Based on previous constitutional practices after declaring independence, in 2010 and 2017, following the motion vote, in both cases the assembly had been disbanded and the country had gone to the polls. Also, even after former Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj's resignation in 2019, the assembly was disbanded and the country had gone to the polls.

Meanwhile, prior to Kosovo's declaration of independence, the practice has marked cases where the prime minister has fallen from office, but has been replaced by another and the same government has continued. One such case was that of Ramush Haradinaj's resignation following the indictment he had filed with The Hague war crimes Tribunal in the former Yugoslavia, when he was succeeded by former Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi.

Albert Krasniqi, connoisseur of political developments and constitutional and legal procedures, had written that the precedent call for distribution of the assembly after the successful motion of no confidence in the government would make sense if the Constitution did not have clear enough provisions on how to act in these cases.

Our “constitution is clear and gives two options:- the launch of procedures from the beginning for the election of the new government; or the distribution of the assembly and the second option should only be the result of the parliamentary majority's absence to form the new government, or, if that is the political will of the 2/3 deputies who would vote for the distribution of the” assembly, Krasniqi wrote.

The Kosovo government, led by Albin Kurti, was elected on 3 February this year, after signing the ruling coalition agreement between the Vetevendosje Movement and the Democratic League of Kosovo.

Major disagreements between the LDK and Vetevendosje came to light in connection with the abolition of the 100 per cent fee against imports from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina -- a move that was imposed by the past Kosovo government, former Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj.

The disagreements between them culminated in Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti's decision to dismiss Agim Veliu from the post of Minister of Internal Affairs and Public Administration, which comes from the ranks of the Democratic League of Kosovo.

The latter had subsequently initiated the no-confidence motion on the government, which was voted in the assembly on March 25th, with 82 votes for, 32 against and 1 abstention.