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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Kosovo nationalists dominate snap elections

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PRISTINA: The European Union on Monday urged Kosovo’s leaders to swiftly build the next government after snap elections placed feuding groups in position to negotiate a coalition.


The hardline coalition led by President Hashim Thaci’s Democratic Party (PDK) won 34.7 per cent of the vote and will nominate former premier and rebel commander Ramush Haradinaj, the head of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK), as the new prime minister.


But Haradinaj will need an ally, and neither of the other two big political groups seems likely to back him.


The Vetevendosje party won 26.7 per cent, ahead of the bloc of outgoing Prime Minister Isa Mustafa’s Democratic League (LDK) with25.8 per cent.


Vetevendosje is the most radical Kosovo party and is at war with the PDK and LDK, opposing every motion they put forward over the past three years. It has launched protests and teargas attacks inside parliament and accuses rivals of corruption.


It also appears improbable that the LDK will rejoin Thaci after his PDK toppled Mustafa in April by pulling out of a coalition and forcing elections a year early.


Wrangling for a coalition also followed the 2014 polls. Then it produced the unpopular grand coalition of PDK and LDK.


“The outcome is definitely one which is not creating immediately a clear majority for a government and I hope that it doesn’t take again up to nine months, as it was the case last time, because it’s so important for this country to stay committed to reforms,” EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn said in Brussels.


“Looking at the results, which doesn’t indicate an easy going, but once again, it’s now the responsibility of political leaders in the country to form very fast — hopefully — a new government,” he added. — dpa


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