Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s left-wing Vetëvendosje party was on course to win Kosovo’s snap election Sunday night for its third electoral triumph since early last year, preliminary results showed.
With more than 95 percent of ballots counted, Vetëvendosje was on 43 percent support versus around 21 percent for the opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo. Voter turnout was 35 percent, down from 45 percent in the previous election in December.
The result represents a sizeable loss of support for Kurti compared with the last ballot, when his party secured a parliamentary majority after winning nearly 50 percent of the vote. The lower total suggests the ruling VV party will have to work with the opposition if it hopes to form a coalition and elect a new president.
It remains to be seen whether votes cast by Kosovo’s diaspora will increase Kurti’s total; they added 2 percent to Vetëvendosje’s tally in December. The exact vote totals will be finalized in the coming weeks after the votes mailed from abroad are counted.
But with the Serbian minority party refusing to work with him and other opposition parties likewise unlikely to find a compromise soon with VV, Kurti likely won’t have enough seats to form a government.
“The diaspora could add 2-3 mandates to Kurti’s Vetëvendosje, meaning he could get around 50 MPs,” said Besar Gërgi, an expert in European integration at the Group for Legal and Political Studies, a Kosovo think tank, who predicted an ongoing political deadlock. “He can’t form a government with [the remaining ethnic minority parties], but also no president can be elected without their approval.”
Kosovo’s latest snap election was forced by a parliamentary crisis over the chamber’s inability to elect a president. Kurti refused to back former President Vjosa Osmani for the post and instead put forward candidates from his own party, which the opposition boycotted.
Kurti and Osmani clashed over the role of the presidency earlier this year, with Osmani accusing Kurti of attempting to consolidate the country’s institutions. “The future of Kosovo cannot be held hostage by political ego,” she said, accusing Kurti of alienating European and U.S. allies in an interview with POLITICO.
Osmani then dissolved the parliament in March, sending Kosovo back to the polls for the third time since early 2025. She rejoined her old party, the Democratic League of Kosovo, aiming to take down Kurti, but finished in third place Sunday on almost 18 percent.
Although it declared independence from Serbia in 2008, Kosovo is still not recognized by five EU member countries and needs to normalize relations with Belgrade to move forward in its application process. It has yet to be granted candidate status after applying in 2022.
