Two weeks for a "fragile government"

The approximately two weeks remaining until the constitutive session of the Kosovo Assembly is held are sufficient for the Vetëvendosje Movement, as the winner of the February 9 parliamentary elections, to hold talks with other political entities on the constitution of the legislature and the formation of the new government.

This is the assessment of political experts from the Democratic Institute of Kosovo and the Group for Legal and Political Studies. However, they warn that the governing coalition may prove to be "fragile."

"I believe that [two weeks] is the necessary amount of time for discussions to take place, at least on the issue of the assembly," emphasizes Eugen Cakolli from the Democratic Institute of Kosovo, writes A2.

Besar Gërgi, a researcher at the Legal and Political Studies Group, does not consider the two-week deadline to be a problematic one for reaching an agreement on the constitution of the Assembly and the formation of the new Government of Kosovo.

"It's a problem of political will [of political entities] and their political maturity," Gërgi emphasizes to Radio Free Europe.

The President of Kosovo, Vjosa Osmani, on Tuesday called a meeting to constitute the Assembly of Kosovo, to be held on April 15.

A day later, she said that until then "there is enough time" for technical preparations for the constitution of the Kosovo Assembly.

The full constitution of the assembly was preceded by the election of its president and vice-presidents, with a majority vote of the deputies.

The speaker of the assembly must be proposed by the Vetëvendosje Movement.

The Vetëvendosje Movement, as the winning party, secured 48 seats in the Kosovo Assembly in the February 9 elections. However, they are not enough to vote for the speaker and deputy speakers of the assembly, as well as to form a government, which requires at least 61 votes.

As for coalitions, the LVV has said it prefers to form the executive with some of the parties of the non-majority communities – which have 20 guaranteed seats in the Kosovo Assembly. The non-Serb minority communities have ten seats, while the Serbian List has won nine of the ten seats belonging to the Serb community.

The acting Prime Minister of Kosovo, also the leader of the Vetevendosje Movement (LVV), Albin Kurti, on Wednesday began meetings with minority political parties to consult on the formation of the country's new government.

He met with the leader of the New Democratic Party (NDS) from the Bosniak community, also acting Deputy Prime Minister, Emilija Rexhepi, with the leader of the Party for Freedom, Justice and Survival from the Serb community, Nenad Rashic, and the leader of the New Democratic Initiative of Kosovo (IRDK), Elbert Krasniqi. During Thursday, Kurti continued meetings with other representatives of non-Serb parties.

On March 30, he announced the possibility that the Kosovo Assembly and Government could be formed within a day.

Possible reconciliation for the formation of a new government

Eugen Cakolli from the Democratic Institute of Kosovo says that, before April 15 was set as the date for the constitutive session of the assembly, political parties had more than a month to talk about possible coalitions for the formation of the new government.

According to him, they have had clear signals that the preliminary election result will not differ much from the result certified by the Central Election Commission on March 27.

The Vetëvendosje Movement has so far ruled out the possibility of a coalition with three other political entities, the Democratic Party of Kosovo, the Democratic League of Kosovo, and the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo and the Social Democratic Initiative coalition.

Unlike LDK and AAK, which have expressed opposition to a governing coalition with the Vetëvendosje Movement, PDK and the Social Democratic Initiative have not set "red lines" for any party.

Moreover, Nisma, which has secured three seats in the assembly, unlike its partner in the pre-election coalition - AAK with five MPs - has hinted that the initiative for a possible coalition with it should be taken by LVV.

Cakolli sees this as an opportunity for the Vetëvendosje Movement, together with the votes of minority parties, to secure 61 votes for the formation of a new government, immediately after the constitution of the assembly.

With the Nisma MPs, the ten non-Serb minority MPs, and Rashiq, the LVV would secure 62 votes in the assembly.

Cakolli says that the next few days, until the constitutive session of the assembly, are sufficient to ensure reconciliation between the Vetëvendosje Movement and the deputies appointed by other parties.

"There are indications that the Vetëvendosje Movement may move towards individual negotiations with certain MPs - including those from Nisma and perhaps others - to secure the minimum constitutional threshold of 61 votes for the election of the speaker of the assembly, but also for the new government," Cakolli tells Radio Free Europe.

He adds that if LVV manages to secure the necessary votes for the election of the assembly speaker, then the constitution of this institution could be done within a few hours.

In this context, he does not see it impossible that on the same day, April 15, a session in the parliament will be scheduled to form a new government, although procedures such as the proposal of the new government by the Vetëvendosje Movement, as well as the subsequent nomination of the candidate by the President of Kosovo, Vjosa Osmani, may take some time.

"Fragile majority with unstable coalition"

Even Besar Gërgi agrees that LVV has two weeks to see if it can secure the 61 votes of deputies to vote for the speaker of the assembly, constitute this institution, and form the new government.

He does not rule out the possibility that this majority of 61 votes could be secured together with non-majority communities and deputies appointed by another party.

But, according to him, this majority in the assembly would be "fragile", just like the new government.

In the context of regional and global geopolitical developments, according to him, Kosovo needs a stable government, which, as he says, is impossible to form without a coalition between LVV and one of the two largest parties, PDK or LDK.

"In public statements, we have to dig very deep to find any weak signal that there is any space for cooperation. But, there is no clear statement, either from Vetëvendosje or from other parties, regarding the creation of a [governing] coalition. If the numbers for the formation of a government are found, if this is done with very fragile numbers, with an unstable coalition, then this again does not provide security for Kosovo and its people in this very complicated geopolitical situation," emphasizes Gërgi.

He adds that a government secured with, what he calls "fragile numbers" of votes, will not be able to survive the election of the president of Kosovo, which is expected in April next year, when the 5-year mandate of President Vjosa Osmani ends.

The election of a new president or the re-election of Osman requires a majority of 80 votes in the Assembly, in two rounds. If the election fails in the first two rounds due to a lack of this number of votes, the president is elected with a simple majority of 61 votes, provided that 80 deputies are present at the session, which means two-thirds of the 120 deputies of the Assembly of Kosovo.

At this point, according to Gërgi, clashes in the parliament between political parties are expected, which may not create the necessary quorum. The failure of the parliament to elect the president sends the country to early parliamentary elections./ REL  (A2 Televizion)