Kurti Still Short of Majority After Talks With Hamza
Acting Prime Minister Albin Kurti called his talks with DPK leader Bedri Hamza constructive but inconclusive. The Democratic Party of Kosovo stays in opposition, leaving Pristina without a governing majority.
- Albin Kurti and DPK leader Bedri Hamza met on July 10, but the talks ended with no concrete deal.
- Self-Determination holds 53 seats, short of the 61 needed for a majority in Kosovo's Assembly.
- The Democratic Party of Kosovo stays in opposition; the Serbian List, with all 10 reserved seats, holds the kingmaker role.
- Turnout at the snap election was a record low, around 37 percent.
Kosovo’s acting Prime Minister Albin Kurti met on July 10 with Bedri Hamza, leader of the Democratic Party of Kosovo, in an effort to break the deadlock over forming institutions in Pristina. Kurti described the meeting as constructive, yet it ended the way it began, without a concrete result and without any sign that the impasse is nearing its end.
After the talks, Hamza made clear that the Democratic Party of Kosovo remains in opposition and that responsibility for assembling a government rests with Self-Determination as the relative winner. With that, one of the few realistic paths to a majority effectively collapsed, and the election cycle that began on June 7 still has no outcome.
Why Pristina remains blocked
The arithmetic is unforgiving. According to the final results, Self-Determination holds 53 of the 120 seats in the Assembly, while a working majority requires 61. Kurti’s party is eight votes short, and none of the potential partners has so far shown any willingness to join a coalition on the acting premier’s terms.
The opposition, which alongside the Democratic Party of Kosovo includes the Democratic League and the Alliance for the Future, accuses Kurti of stalling. Leaders of those parties say they will not serve as a lifeline for a government that called the vote and then came up short on the numbers. Kurti, for his part, insists he is talking to everyone and that the goal is to constitute the Assembly, elect a government and choose a new president within the constitutional deadlines.
The context makes matters harder. Turnout at the snap election was around 37 percent, a record low, which sharpens every argument about legitimacy. When abstention runs this high, each side finds it easier to challenge the other’s mandate, and the room for compromise narrows rather than widens.
What does the stalemate mean for Serbs in the north?
For the Serb community, this is no abstract Pristina affair. The Serbian List won all 10 seats reserved for Serbs and, in a fragmented Assembly with no clear majority, its votes become a prized commodity. In any scenario where Kurti, or anyone else, seeks a route to 61, those ten deputies enter the calculation.
From what we understand in Pristina’s corridors, that is precisely why a final agreement keeps slipping. No one wants to be the first to reveal their hand toward the Serb deputies, because doing so would also reveal the price they are prepared to pay. For Serbs in northern Kosovo, who have lived for years under a regime of temporary fixes, a prolonged blockade means continued uncertainty over everyday matters, from the dinar and payment operations to the functioning of municipalities.
Kosovo’s institutions are thus left idling while the constitutional clock ticks toward the deadline for forming a government. If the next round of talks fails too, one scenario no one says aloud remains on the table, another election. Is Kurti willing to risk a third count in the same year, or will he yield to an opposition that is holding him in check?
