Kosovo faces political uncertainty as ruling party fails to secure election majority

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The party lead by Kosovo's prime minister, Albin Kurti, is on track to win the most seats in the country's parliament, but it won't have enough to control the majority, the election commission has stated.

Sunday's poll saw Kurti's campaign to curb Serbia's influence, more than 15 years after Kosovo declared its independence, go head-to-head with the opposition's promise to rev up the economy in one of Europe's most impoverished regions.

With 93% of the votes counted and no party having a clear majority in the 120-seat parliament, analysts are warning that Kosovo could be facing a protracted crisis, possibly leading to another election.

Kurti's Vetëvendosje ("Self-Determination") party (VV) was set to get around 41% of the vote, according to election commission figures, down from about 50% in 2021.

The right-wing Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) came second with 22% of the votes, followed by the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) with 18%.

The election expert Mazllum Baraliu reckons either of the two major parties could try to get the support of smaller political groups. "Whichever of these two combinations works out, it won't be stable and will only be a temporary fix," he said. If that doesn't work out and the president can't cobble together a compromise, a fresh election would be a certainty, he said.

Kurti had hinted before the vote that if his party couldn't get a majority, he'd probably sit in opposition. But as the votes were counted, he changed his mind. "Without any delay, we'll form a government," he told his supporters, congratulating them on their "win".

Leart Hoxha, a political commentator, said VV wouldn't be in a hurry to form a coalition, and would instead stick around as a caretaker government while the other parties had a barney. "This'll be a year that will be chucked down the drain; it'll be a government that won't be able to push for big projects," he said, adding that this would probably lead to a fair dinkum political and social crisis.

Election officials said voter turnout for the vote was around 40%.

Twenty seats in parliament are set aside for minority parties, including ten for Kosovo's ethnic Serbs, who are significantly outnumbered by ethnic Albanians.

The Serbian List party claims they've taken all 10 seats, which would give them significant influence in the parliament, despite often boycotting it and being viewed by Kosovan authorities as the military arm of Serbia.

“We'd like to thank our Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić for his congratulations and support, not just today but over the whole time," the party's leader, Zlatan Elek, said at a news conference, referring to Serbia's leader. "We've only got one country and one leader."

Kosovo went to war with Serbia in the late 1990s as it tried to split away, but Belgrade has never acknowledged its declaration of independence, made back in 2008.

sent regional tensions soaring.

Kurti also launched a concerted effort to dismantle the remaining Serbian institutions operating on Kosovo soil by closing down Belgrade-backed banks and post and tax offices, and blocking the use of the Serbian currency and car registration plates.

Throughout the unrest, Kurti has stuck to his guns, even if it meant going against the grain with Kosovo's mates in the US and Europe.