Kosovo parliament elects Shiroka Pula president, averting snap election
Economist Justina Shiroka Pula won 81 votes in Kosovo's 120-seat parliament to become president in the early minutes of Wednesday, clearing a constitutional deadline and averting fresh snap elections.
Kosovo’s parliament has elected economist Justina Shiroka Pula as the country’s largely ceremonial president in the early minutes of Wednesday, clearing a constitutional deadline and avoiding another snap election in one of Europe’s poorest countries.
Shiroka Pula won 81 votes in the 120-seat assembly — one more than the 80 needed. Had parliament failed to elect a head of state, the country would have faced fresh parliamentary elections, as it did in June.
“This mandate does not belong to just one person. It belongs to our citizens… I will be the president of all citizens,” she said after the vote.
Her election followed a deal between Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s ruling Vetevendosje party and the opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo to limit the powers of the Kosovo war crimes court in The Hague — a deeply contentious move.
On Monday, police fired tear gas and used water cannon to disperse hundreds of demonstrators outside parliament, including supporters and veterans of the Kosovo Liberation Army, who demanded the court curbs be approved. Twelve people were injured, The Associated Press reported.
The court sentenced former president Hashim Thaci and three others to a combined 81 years in prison on 16 September for war crimes committed during Kosovo’s 1998–1999 break from Serbia. Thaci received 25 years.
Born in 1953, Shiroka Pula is president of Kosovo’s Academy of Sciences and Arts and an economics professor who served as economy minister between 2008 and 2011.
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