After many rounds of failures in two consecutive days on Saturday and Sunday Parliament of Kosovo elected on April 4 Vjosa Osmani, a candidate of the ruling Levizja Vetevendosje (Self-Determination Movement) as the country’s new president.
With 71 votes, Osmani was elected on the third ballot by the 120-member legislative. Eighty-two deputies participated in the voting, but 11 ballots were disqualified. Osmani’s opponent, Nasuf Bejta, did not secure any votes.
The election came one day after the parliament failed to elect her because it was unable to muster the 80 votes required to form a quorum. In two rounds of voting on April 3, 78 and 79 deputies participated.
Osmani was elected with the support of Vetevendosje and non-Serb minorities, while her previous party, the Democratic League of Kosovo attended the session and enabled the quorum but didn’t support her. Other opposition parties, Democratic Party of Kosovo, Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, and Lista Srpska were against her election and boycotted the voting session.
If parliament had failed to elect a president by April 5, snap parliamentary elections would automatically have been called, potentially opening the door for Prime Minister Albin Kurti to increase his hold on the government.
Vetevendosje won 58 out of 120 seats in February’s elections and formed a ruling coalition with nine members representing non-Serb ethnic minorities.
US Ambassador Philip Kosnett urged all members of parliament to take responsibility and participate in the session.
“The U.S. Government position remains unchanged. We support an Assembly vote for President,” Kosnett said on Twitter. “We call on all members of the Assembly to fulfill their responsibilities to the people of Kosovo by participating in the vote to ensure a quorum.”
Vjosa Osmani was Kosovo’s first woman Speaker of Parliament, and she served as the country’s Acting President from November 5 until March 22, following the resignation of Hashim Thaci after war crime charges.
She is married and a mother to twins’ daughters.
Osmani started her carrier as a teenage activist. She studied law in Pristina and then completed her masters and bachelor degrees in the US University of Pittsburgh. The politician was one of the leaders of the Democratic League of Kosovo (DLK) which is now in opposition, but was ousted after inter-party strife. / argumentum.al
