Pristina to Elect Five Deputy Speakers Amid Serbian Dispute

The Kosovo Assembly resumes its session at 11 a.m. today with a single item on the agenda: electing the parliament’s five deputy speakers. The attempt already failed once, on Wednesday, September 9, when the vote was halted over a dispute about the wording used by Serbian List parliamentary group leader Igor Simic, who said he was nominating his party’s candidate “on behalf of the Serbian people.”

The constitutive session of the 11th convocation opened on August 6 and has now been interrupted twice, both times at the request of caretaker Prime Minister and Self-Determination Movement leader Aljbin Kurti. On Wednesday, at least part of the job got done: Aljbuljena Hadziju was elected Assembly speaker, a post she also held in the previous convocation, with 62 votes in favor, 16 against and 13 abstentions.

The election of the deputy speakers, however, never happened. Five seats are up for a vote, with Ardijan Gola of the Self-Determination Movement, Vljora Citaku of the Democratic Party of Kosovo, Kujtim Salja of the Democratic League of Kosovo, Emilija Redzepi representing other non-majority communities, and Slavko Simic of the Serbian List all nominated. The Serbian List’s written nomination for its seat was submitted back on August 6.

What Simic said from the podium

The dispute began when Igor Simic, presenting the Serbian List’s nomination from the podium, said he was putting forward Slavko Simic on behalf of the Serbian people, backed by the signatures of nine of the ten lawmakers who make up the majority of Serbian representatives in parliament. Hadziju called the wording unconstitutional and asked him to withdraw it.

“The Serbian people are in Serbia, and the Kosovo people are in Kosovo,” Hadziju said, adding that the population there is 92 percent Albanian, four percent Serb and four percent from other non-majority communities.

Simic refused to back down.

“I am a member of the Serbian people, and you will not take that right away from me,” Simic said from the podium.

Since he would not withdraw the wording, Hadziju cut off his microphone and suspended the session, having also failed beforehand to reach agreement with the parliamentary groups on how to vote for the candidates of the Democratic Party of Kosovo and the Democratic League of Kosovo. According to accounts from the session, Simic had earlier that day also walked out of consultations with the Assembly speaker, saying no Serbian language interpretation had been provided.

Does Simic’s wording carry legal consequences?

Ahead of today’s continuation of the session, former Constitutional Court of Kosovo president Enver Hasani said Simic’s sentence carries no legal consequences and is a matter of identity rather than legal language.

“That is his freedom. I speak on behalf of the Serbian people of Kosovo. There is a Serbian, Bosniak, Turkish, and even a Montenegrin people in Kosovo, even though that is not a constitutional category,” Hasani told KTV, while also warning that political sparring in parliament could raise tensions.

Petar Petkovic, director of Serbia’s Office for Kosovo and Metohija, described the scenes from the Pristina assembly in far harsher terms, calling them racial segregation of Serbs and apartheid.

“Everything the Serbian people endure, persecution, arrests, the demolition of Serbian houses, pressure on the Serbian language and a ban on Serbian symbols, is part of a Pristina policy that openly says the Serbian people do not exist,” Petkovic said, asking whether the European Union will finally react.

AAK boycotts, Self-Determination Movement to withhold votes

The Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) will again stay out of the chamber today. Its seven lawmakers have been absent since the party concluded that the constitutional deadline for constituting the Assembly, which expired on August 7, has already been breached.

“The seven lawmakers of the Alliance are telling the citizens of Kosovo that tomorrow’s session holds nothing but a game that Aljbin Kurti will play. We do not want to take part in that game,” said AAK secretary general Avni Arifi.

The Self-Determination Movement, for its part, has announced it will vote for neither Kujtim Salja nor Vljora Citaku, the candidates of the Democratic League of Kosovo and the Democratic Party of Kosovo. Lawmaker Arber Redzaj explained that the reason lies in how Salja’s party has treated an earlier agreement between Kurti and Ljumir Abdidziku.

“Salja does not have the Self-Determination Movement’s vote. And you know why, because the agreement on the speaker had been reached. I was happy the day I saw that. But then I saw Avdulah Hoti and Kujtim Salja. The way they ran the internal race within the Democratic League of Kosovo and used the current political context was not right,” Redzaj said.

Democratic Party of Kosovo leader Bedri Hamza met ahead of today’s continuation with US Embassy charge d’affaires Ana Pratipati and said Kosovo needs a functioning parliament without further delays. Democratic League of Kosovo leader Ljumir Abdidziku held talks with the same diplomat as well, which his party described as focused on overcoming the political deadlock.

Teras announces leadership elected, Serbian List denies it

Amid the dispute, European Parliament rapporteur for Kosovo Riho Teras met with UNMIK head Piter Due and afterward wrote on X that the Kosovo Assembly, following a prolonged political blockade, had elected its leadership.

“Following a prolonged political stalemate, the Kosovo Assembly has elected its leadership,” Teras wrote, adding that the next challenge is electing Kosovo’s president.

The Serbian List rejected that assessment as inaccurate, pointing out that the five deputy speaker seats remain unfilled.

The constituting of the Assembly therefore remains unfinished a week and a half after the constitutional deadline of August 7 expired. The Kosovo Institute of Justice holds that missing the deadline is a breach of the constitution but does not release lawmakers from the obligation to constitute parliament regardless, while the Kosovo Democratic Institute has asked the Constitutional Court for a fresh ruling on the legal consequences of constituting the Assembly after the deadline. Whether all five deputy speakers will be elected today, or whether the dispute over Igor Simic’s wording will again postpone the session, should become clear after 11 a.m.