Page 14 - bne_newspaper_September_08_2017

Southeast Europe
September 8, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 14
Kosovan parties sign deal to form government, ending political stalemate
bne IntelliNews
The three parties in Kosovo’s PAN coalition led by the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) signed a deal with the New Kosovo Alliance to form a new government on September 4.
This will put an end to the political vacuum
in Kosovo, which has been without governing institutions since the inconclusive June election. Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) leader Ramush Haradinaj has been nominated as the country’s next prime minister.
The deal was signed after the leader of the liberal New Kosovo Alliance, Behgjet Pacolli, officially confirmed that his party’s pre-election coalition deal with the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) had broken down. The new coalition will have 63 seats in the 120-seat assembly.
The PAN coalition — made up of three parties
led by former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commanders — took the largest share of the vote in the June election, but did not gain enough seats in the parliament to form a government alone. Since then the leaders of the PDK and its coalition partners have been trying to persuade other parties in the new parliament to support its government.
The PAN coalition was formed ahead of the election, which took place days before the Hague- based Kosovo Specialist Chambers, set up to try former KLA fighters, became operational. Its main rival was seen as the LAA coalition led by Prime Minister Isa Mustafa’s Democratic League of
Kosovo's likely next prime minister Ramush Haradinaj.
Kosovo, which had advocated peaceful resistance against Serbian oppression, resulting in an election dubbed the “guns” against the “roses”.
The chambers will investigate a range of allega- tions against KLA members, including crimes against humanity and war crimes, as detailed in the Council of Europe’s 2010 Marty Report, which prompted the EU to establish a special investigative task force. Among the top politicians mentioned in Marty’s report are President Hashim Thaci, PDK leader Kadri Veseli and Fatmir Limaj, the leader of Nisma, the third party in the PAN coalition.
Its choice of prime minister, is a controversial one given Haradinaj’s wartime history and his stance on relations with Serbia. At the beginning of this year, Haradinaj was detained in Basel on
a Serbian war crimes warrant, even though his lawyers argued that he had already been tried and acquitted by the Hague Tribunal for the same crimes. A French court later ruled he would not be extradited to Belgrade.
The choice has unnerved Serbs living in Kosovo, who fear he will take a hard line on issues such as the establishment of the Association of Serb- Majority Municipalities — a key agreement under the Belgrade-Pristina normalisation process.
The striking of a deal with Pacolli’s New Kosovo Alliance ensures the PDK, which has been in government since 2007 — the year before Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia — will remain in power. Its position is