PRISTINA: Kosovo began voting Sunday for a new parliament that will have to navigate tense relations with Serbia, endemic corruption and possible war crimes indictments for some of its leaders.
The early general election is only the third since Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in 2008. But it “might be the hardest to predict,” according to Florian Bieber, professor of Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz in Austria.
A month after the last government lost a confidence vote, the battle for a new prime minister pitches an ex-guerrilla commander against a former student protest leader and an economist likened to French President Emmanuel Macron. Polls opened at 0500 GMT across the country of about 1.8 million people, most of whom are ethnic Albanian.
“This election has to open a new chapter,” said 66-year-old Ekrem Haziri, one of dozens of pensioners queueing in the early morning rain in the capital Pristina.
“It is time to end the huge abuse of tax-payers’ money. We need a government that will take care of its own people.”
Officials said 8.45 per cent of the electorate had voted four hours after polls opened, down on the last election in 2014.
Overshadowing the vote is a new special court set up to try war crimes allegedly committed by members of the pro-independence Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which fought Serbian forces in the late 1990s.
Among those some speculate could be on the list of indictees — which may be announced later this year — are President Hashim Thaci and outgoing speaker Kadri Veseli, who both hail from the powerful Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK).
— AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
