In 2007, when regular elections were last held in Kosovo, voters were born who will have the right to vote for the first time on February 9th.
In the last 18 years, parliamentary elections have been held in Kosovo five times, and all of them were extraordinary: the ruling majority was losing support.
The elections for the Assembly of Kosovo on February 9th come four years after the previous vote, as the government of Self-Determination, the party of Prime Minister Albin Kurti, has maintained stable support.
Kurti's second term as prime minister lasted because his party won with a supermajority in 2021 and, apart from minority parties, did not need coalition partners.
Traditional parties that emerged from the wars of the 190s found themselves in opposition, but now the Democratic Alliance and the Democratic Party of Kosovo will still be competing for the most seats.
The Serbian List, which has the support of official Belgrade, is competing for the guaranteed mandates of the Serbian community, but this year it faces a series of challengers, many of whom were previously their members.
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Slightly more than two million people will have the right to vote for one of the 28 lists, of which about one hundred thousand are outside Kosovo.
All of them will elect 120 deputies to the Assembly of Kosovo, of which ten seats will be guaranteed to go to the Serbian community and ten to minorities.
Self-determination against all
Self-Determination, the party led by Albin Kurti, secured a peaceful mandate by winning more than 50 percent of the vote four years ago.
The former movement is also running in these elections with the support of the Gudžo party, founded by the President of Kosovo. Vjosa Osmani, despite a certain cooling of relations between the Prime Minister and the President at the end of last year, as well as the Alternative group.
Albin Kurti says that the vote for his list ensures the continuation of the policies he has pursued so far: economic development with state support, social benefits for the vulnerable, and the fight against corruption.
If he remains in power, Kurti announces the continuation of a tough policy towards Serbia, as well as further integration of northern Kosovo, noting that he will not work on establishing a community of municipalities with a Serbian majority in his next term, as agreed in 2013 in the Brussels negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo, mediated by the European Union.
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The Democratic Party of Kosovo (DPK), founded by Hashim Thaci, former spokesperson for the Kosovo Liberation Army, Prime Minister and President of Kosovo, entered the election race as the strongest opposition party in the previous convocation of the Kosovo Assembly.
For President Memlji Krasniqi, a 44-year-old former journalist, these are the first elections in which he leads a party that is in sharp conflict with Vetëvendosje, which was evident in the almost physical clashes between supporters of the two parties at rallies.
The DPK criticizes Kurti's government for failing to fulfill promises in the fight against corruption, as well as for spoiling relations with foreign allies.
Due to the unilateral moves of the Kosovo Government, the European Union imposed sanctions on Kosovo that are still in force, while Richard Grenell, a close associate of US President Donald Trump, on the X network publicly and loudly criticizes Kurti, and praises Thaci, who is currently in custody at the Special Court for Kosovo in The Hague.
The DPK candidate for Prime Minister of Kosovo is economic expert Bedri Hamza, mayor of South Mitrovica.
The Democratic Alliance of Kosovo (DSK), a party founded by Ibrahim Rugova, a political leader of Albanians from Kosovo at the end of the 20th century, is also running in the elections with a new leader.
Ljumir Abdixiku, a 41-year-old financial expert, leads a party that bases its campaign on criticism of the economic policies of the previous government and promises a new path for Kosovo.
The Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (ABK), the party of Ramush Haradinaj, and Nisma, the party of Fatmir Limaj, are participating in these parliamentary elections together.
The parties of the two former commanders of the Kosovo Liberation Army are sharply criticizing Kurti's government for its troubled relations with the United States and promising that they could better respond to Kosovo's international challenges.
The Coalition for the Family is a list that was created before these parliamentary elections, and it is led by former Vetëvendosje MPs who left the party.
They disagreed with the party's decisions, which they considered too liberal, and they advocate conservative values and oppose the rights of LGBT people.
Also at the top of the list is Seljim Pacolli, brother of Behxhet Pacolli, former president of Kosovo, who will not be a candidate in these elections, but members of his Alliance for a New Kosovo are there.
Parties that have so far failed to come close to winning seats in the Kosovo Assembly will also compete for votes: the Party of the Democratic National Front of Albanians, the Fjala party (translated from Albanian: Word), as well as independent candidate Fatmir Bytyqi.
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New Serbian List and new rivals
As many as six lists will compete for ten guaranteed mandates for the Serbian community in Kosovo.
The Serbian List has so far won all these mandates unchallenged, but it has undergone changes in leadership between the two election cycles.
First, Prime Minister Kurti invited them to the government, and then, contrary to previous practice, selected a minister who was not a member of their party, and then, after the unrest in northern Kosovo, the Serb List MPs boycotted the work of the Parliament.
Finally, after armed conflict in Banjska In September 2023, when a group of Serbs killed a Kosovo police officer and then hid in a nearby monastery and exchanged fire with Kosovo police, the Serbian List changed leadership.
Zlatan Elek took over the leadership of the party from Goran Rakić, but it has not changed that the party still has the support of the Serbian Progressive Party and official Belgrade.
Serbian Democracy is a party led by Aleksandar Arsenijević, an activist and politician from North Mitrovica, known for numerous arrests for blowing the whistle during visits by Kosovo officials to northern Kosovo.
The Kosovo Serb Party is led by Aleksandar Jablanović, once one of the most prominent members, and then a vocal opponent of the Serbian List.
On the list of the Civic Initiative People's Justice, Nenad Radosavljević, a former candidate for mayor of Leposavić, a municipality in the north, will attempt to enter the Kosovo Assembly, as well as Radoica Radomirović, who was one of the deputy ministers for returns and communities in the previous mandate of the government of Albin Kurti.
The For Freedom, Justice and Survival list is led by Nenad Rašić, a minister in the previous government of Albin Kurti.
Rašić did not compete in the previous elections because legal proceedings were ongoing against him, but he supported one of the lists at the time.
When the process was completed, he was elected Minister of Returns and Communities instead of Goran Rakić, the then leader of the Serbian List, which had won all the mandates intended for Serbs and did not support Rašić's election.
The Serbian People's Movement party was founded and is led by Branimir Stojanović, another former high-ranking official of the Serbian List, from Gračanica.
Second on the list is Milija Biševac, a former civic activist from Zubin Potok, a municipality in northern Kosovo.
Crowding among minorities
Ten guaranteed seats in the Assembly of Kosovo also belong to minority communities, for which a lower electoral threshold applies.
Of the 28 lists on the ballot, exactly half - as many as 14 - have MPs representing voters in Kosovo who do not identify as Serbs or Albanians.
Among the parties of the Turkish community is the Democratic Party of Kosovo Turks, which won two mandates in the previous elections, and is being contested by two other parties of this community.
Three Bosniak parties won one mandate each four years ago and are competing in these elections: the Vakat coalition, the New Democratic Party, led by Kosovo Deputy Prime Minister Emilija Rexhepi, and the Social Democratic Union.
The Naša coalition will also try to enter parliament this year with Bosniak votes.
The Egyptian community in Kosovo had a representative in the Assembly of Kosovo, the New Democratic Initiative of Kosovo, whose leader, Elbert Krasniqi, also became Minister of Local Self-Government.
Krasniqi's party will have a rival for Egyptian votes in the Liberal Party.
The Roma community is running in two columns: through the Roma United Party and the Roma Opre party.
The Ashkali community will also participate in the elections in the same way: through the Ashkali Party and the PDAК coalition.
Finally, the United Gorani Party will represent the Gorani people in Kosovo.
Complicated voting and counting
120 candidates are competing for 1.280 seats in the Assembly of Kosovo.
The ballot is one of the largest in the region.
In addition to choosing one of the 28 lists numbered 111 to 138, voters can also cast so-called direct votes for candidates.
On the right half of the ballot paper, numbers from 1 to 110 are written, representing the ordinal numbers of the deputies on the lists submitted by the parties.
A voter can select up to ten candidates within the list they voted for, to whom they will give a direct vote, and thus help ensure that they find themselves in the parliamentary seats.
However, in addition to the fact that voters must know the ordinal numbers of the candidates they support, they must also take into account that all 110 seats are filled on only four lists.
Voters who are not in Kosovo can vote by mail, one day in advance, at Kosovo embassies and consulates, or by delivering a letter to Kosovo embassies or consulates.
Polls open on February 9 at 7 a.m. and close 12 hours later.
For the first time this year, the election silence was shortened only to the time the polls were open, and not the day before, as before.
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Seventeen years after declaring independence, Kosovo has been recognized by around 100 countries. However, the exact number is unknown.
Pristina cites a figure of 117 countries, and in Belgrade they say that there are far fewer.
Among the countries of the European Union that have not recognized Kosovo are Spain, Slovakia, Cyprus, Greece and Romania, and when it comes to world powers, they are Russia, China, Brazil and India.
Since 2008, Kosovo has become a member of several international organizations, such as the IMF, the World Bank and FIFA, but not the United Nations.
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