Two days of deadline for president, parties still without agreement

March 5th is the last day Kosovo Assembly deputies can elect the president.

The meeting, held Monday in the middle of Vetevendosje Chairman Albin Kurti, and that of the Democratic League, Lumir Abdixhiku, has not produced results.

After the meeting, Abdixhiku said he sees political consensus among parties for the name of the new president very difficult, stressing that there is no refusal to stand against President Vjosa Osmani.

We have no one with 15 signatures to ask for 15 more. We have not been proposed any names to ask for our votes. So, at this stage, we have no resistance to anyone. The less Mrs. Osmani” said Obadiah.

Kurt and Obadiah have met on the same issue last Monday.

Abdixhiku said that if both Vetevendosje and the Democratic Party enter the race with a nomination for president, then the country goes to the polls. With 66 votes from the ruling coalition and the 15 LDK deputies would secure the 81 votes needed for the election of the new president, which the constitutional deadline has by March 5th, reports Express, transmission Periscope.

So if the Vetevendosje Movement and the PDK decide to race, then we go to the elections according to all odds, because I don't know how they will make 80 votes, but the consensus makes president. The LDK has been committed to finding president. So to find a consecutive, non-relational government name, not to be the continuation of the government, especially of a government that has 51 percent of the vote, the president should be one against balance”, the LDK leader has declared.

Prime Minister Kurti said he does not have the 80 votes needed for electing the president and that all he can do with current numbers is to secure signatures for two candidates.

“As Vetevendosje Movement we are able to extract a candidate because we make 30 signatures, because it takes 30 signatures to have candidacy. Even with the minorities in our majority, we can get two candidates out. Because we have 60 signatures in 66. Now even the opposition, if we don't include the Serbian List, are 43 deputies, 22 PDK, 15 The LDK and 6 AAK total 43. So even the opposition can issue a candidate. The constitution obliges us to avoid elections, so we don't go to elections. The constitution says that we have to commit ourselves to not going to the elections”, Kurti said.

And for Vjosa Osmani's candidacy, Kurti said he does not have enough votes.

We must have 80 people standing in the hall and voting minimally. We don't think we should go by 80. If 79 is up to the end, we automatically go to the elections. We have an absolute priority in the current political situation of election avoidance. We need to make sure we don't have 80, but we have about 84-85”.

Kurti has also met with Democratic Party of Kosovo Chairman Bedri Hamza on Sunday. After meeting with Hamza, he declared that he does not have a consensus name for president and that he hopes the week he began on Monday (day) to have the race for the post. But interpretation of possible resolution of the new president's case as a race has ruled out the mayor PDK. He has said that if there is a “result known”. Hamza announced that he has offered Kurt an agreement under which the president would be elected by a proposal. The PDK, as an attempt to avoid elections and overcome political stalemate.
Kurti earlier stated that he believes Murat Jashar, son of Rifat Jashar and a member of the family of Adam Jashar, would be a fitting figure for the president's post.

However, Murat Yasar has indicated that there is no ambition for this position.

Unlike Jashari, the current president, Vjosa Osmani, has expressed the desire for a second mandate, but the Vetevendosje Movement, which had proposed it in the first term, has not mentioned its name as a candidate. Opposition parties have criticised Osman for, as they have said, bias in favour of the government.

According to the Kosovo Constitution, at least 30 deputies' signatures are needed to propose a candidate for president. The Vetevendosje movement has 57 deputies, while no other party has the only 30 votes.

The president's election requires at least 80 votes in one of the first two ballots, or 61 votes in the third round, out of a total of 120 MPs as long as the Parliament.

Kurti has said that if an agreement is not reached for a broad-backed figure, then one of the options is for each party to propose its own candidate and the process to be held through the race in the Assembly.

In recent weeks, the willingness to run has also voiced former Prime Minister Arsim Bajrami, though without clear support from other parties.

If the Assembly fails to elect the president within the constitutional terms, the country faces distribution of the Parliament and early parliamentary elections. /Periscope