unconstitutional vote for President: Feride Rushiti voted 63 deputies

The first round of presidential voting was held in the Kosovo Assembly, though two-thirds of the deputies were not present at the hall.

The session included 64 deputies, from this number “63 deputies voted for Feride Rushiti, an invalid vote and zero votes for Hatage Hoxha”, announced VV's Salih Zyba.

Albulen Haxhiu, chairman of the Parliament, announced the closure of the session and its follow-up for tomorrow at 10:00.

The Kosovo Democratic Institute (KDI) has strongly condemned the effort to advance the president's election without the fulfillment of the required constitutional quorum.

According to KDI, such an act directly violates the foundations of constitutional order and the functioning of parliamentary democracy in the country.

“The decisions and practice of the Constitutional Court have clearly clarified the standard to follow, under which the president's election procedure requires the participation of at least two-thirds of all MPs in the first and second round of voting, while only after meeting this condition the procedure continues in the third round”.

“Any attempt to bypass this constitutional order and elect the president with a limited number of MPs in the hall constitutes open violations of the Constitution and deliberate deformities of constitutional principles. Furthermore, there is no judicial basis that allows for lowering quorum on the basis of claims on the absence of deputies”.

“KDI estimates that this approach creates a dangerous precedent and paves the way for unilateral interpretations of constitutional rules. Therefore, KDI calls on MPs to respect constitutional standards and avoid actions that deepen the institutional crisis. We also urge them to halt any action that violates constitutional order and to return to full compliance with constitutional procedures”, it says in response. /Periscope