What's going on behind the scenes in the Kosovo parliament crisis?

USPA NEWS - The recent crisis in Kosovo, which has left the country with an institutional vacuum, that is, with a resigned government and an assembly without deputies, because the mandates of those elected from the February 9th battle cannot be verified, is more of a political calculation than a clash over the interpretation of the constitution and laws.

Both the government and the opposition are each holding diametrically opposed positions simply to gain time.

The parties that lost the elections, LDK, PDK and AAK, have refused in two consecutive sessions to vote on the verification of the mandates of the new deputies, thus preventing the constitution of the parliament.They have used a legal argument for this. According to them, the law of the country prohibits MPs from performing any other duties, including those of a minister. Therefore, they claim, the ministers of the previous Kurti cabinet can no longer go to office while also being MPs. They must give way to someone else.In the two failed parliamentary sessions , they referred to Article 26 which states that "when a member of a government in office is elected as a deputy, he must resign rom his government position...".

On the other hand, Prime Minister Kurti and his ministers claim to have resigned on March 23, the day the previous government’s term ended. They simply claim that they are implementing the constitution by remaining in office so as not to create an institutional vacuum, “certifying” the government’s resignation through a letter that attested to it by the incumbent speaker of parliament, Glauk Konjufca.

Albin Kurti, leader of the Vetëvendosje Movement, the winning party in the February 9 elections, insists that the opposition’s demand that he resign and not appear in office again is meaningless.

“It is not possible to resign any more than that, any more than that would be an abandonment of the institution, an institutional vacuum, political irresponsibility and a threat to national security. It is a request and insistence – to put it mildly – ??reckless to leave the house without a homeowner,” he said during a government meeting.So, it has approximately 62 deputies out of 120 that make up the Kosovo parliament. But if this claim is true, why then is Vetëvendosje not using this majority to constitute the parliament and return the situation to normality?

The suspicion is that, although it has this majority, Kurti's party is aware that this constitutes an extremely fragile majority to guarantee stability. It will buy time with the hope that someone else from the opposition offers to cooperate. In this sense, the crisis, the postponement of the establishment of new institutions and the old government's stay as a cabinet in office are beneficial to it. And the opposition is giving it this opportunity.What is the gain of the latter? Convinced that it cannot form a government of its own, mainly due to the lack of will of the two major parties, PD-LDK, to cooperate with each other, the opposition has chosen the path of delegitimizing Albin Kurti and shaking the idea that he is powerless to create stability. Therefore, it has decided not to allow the constitution of the parliament, finding as a pretext the mandates of the deputies who cannot remain as ministers in office.

So, although the debate is apparently constitutional and legal, these principled arguments hide clear political intentions.

So, although the debate is apparently constitutional and legal, these principled arguments hide clear political intentions. The opposition plays the destructive card to tarnish Albin Kurti's image, while the latter, although he has the numbers, takes on the risk of this crisis, in the hope that time will help him to increase his majority, which does not guarantee him a peaceful government.