LDK

The Constitutional Court of Kosovo on Thursday ruled that President Hashim Thaci did not make an unconstitutional decision when he gave a mandate to a new prime minister to form a new administration without holding fresh elections.

He took this action after the outgoing ruling party, Vetevendosje, did not nominate anyone for the role.

Kosovo's incumbent Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, on Tuesday night condemned a death threat he said he had received from a phantom organisation called the "Albanian Volunteers' Guard", as the country edges close to the Constitutional Court ruling on his request to annul President Hashim Thaci's decree mandating Avdullah Hoti to form a new government.

Pressing on with his plans to form a new government without holding fresh elections, Kosovo President Hashim Thaci on Thursday asked the former junior governing party, the Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, Isa Mustafa, to name a potential mandator to form a new administration.

After the heads of the Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, Isa Mustafa, and the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, AAK, former prime minister Ramush Haradinaj, on Wednesday agreed to work on creating a new coalition government, President Thaci said he would give a mandate to form a government to whatever coalition was able to assemble a majority.

"Next week I'll take the final constitutional steps to enable the formation of a new government with full legitimacy from parliament, capable of fighting COVID-19 and serving the people," the President tweeted. 

Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Relations and Bob Menendez, a ranking member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, send a joint letter to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday that the Trump administration should ease its pressure on Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and his outgoing administration.

Kosovo President Hashim Thaci held consultative meetings with political leaders on Wednesday as he pushes for the formation of a unity government following the March 25 no-confidence vote in the government of Prime Minister Albin Kurti.

The US Special Envoy for the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, Richard Grenell, the US Ambassador to Kosovo, Philip Kosnett, and the US Special Representative for the Western Balkans, Matthew Palmer, have dismissed claims made by outgoing Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti that the Presidents of Kosovo and Serbia had reached a secret agreement on a land swap with their knowledge as part of a final deal on

All that remained for citizens to make their voices heard was to express their displeasure at the political tragedy by banging pots and pans from their balconies in the evening during the partial lockdown.

Good intentions, bad performance:

Ramush Haradinaj in Pristina, Kosovo, 2019. Photo: EPA-EFE/VALDRIN XHEMAJ

The director of Serbia's Government Office for Kosovo, Marko Djuric, has called on Srpska Lista [Serbian List], the Belgrade-backed political option in Kosovo, to stay out of what he called the "Albanian-Albanian" political conflict in the country.