Kosovo Avoids New Deadlock With Last-Minute Presidential Election

Newly elected President Justina Shiroka Pula takes oath in Kosovo Parliament, October 7, 2026. Photo: BIRN/Shqipron Xhema After a roller-coaster of proposals for the vacant post of Kosovo’s President, MPs pulled off a last-minute save just before midnight on Tuesday, avoiding a constitutional deadline that would have triggered parliament’s dissolution and the fourth parliamentary election in less than two years. Justina Shiroka Pula, a 73-year-old economist, former minister and MP and current head of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo, was announced as the new President with 81 votes in favour and two votes not valid. “I pledge to dedicate all my strength to safeguarding the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Kosovo,” Shiroka-Pula declared. She is the third woman President of Kosovo. She has directed the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo since December 2025. From 2008 to 2011, she was Minister of Energy and Mining in a government led by Hashim Thaçi. She was part of the Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK’s, parliamentary group from 2011 to 2014. Shiroka Pula was nominated by Prime Minister Albin Kurti at a press conference just before midnight, after earlier candidates did not get the backing of the opposition PDK. The issue of electing the President had become tangled up with demands for law changes to curb the powers of the Hague-based Kosovo Specialist Chambers, which sparked anger after it convicted four former Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, leaders of war crimes last month. PDK leader Bedri Hamza said in a press conference after the election that “we do not want to hinder justice, we want to establish justice. The President is the people’s representative, I believe she will do her job with honour and high responsibility.” The PDK and the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, AAK, had called for draft amendments to the law governing the Chambers to be passed on a second reading before they would agree with the government on electing a President. Kurti had claimed that electing a President was the priority – until he proposed voting through the law amendments prior to electing the President as a solution. The law change was then adopted in an extraordinary session close to midnight on Tuesday just before the election of the President. It crucially limits the jail sentences the court can impose to 15 years. On September 16, the court sentenced former Kosovo President Thaci and three other former KLA chiefs, Jakup Krasniqi, Kadri Veseli and Rexhep Selimi, to 25, 25, 18 and 13 years in prison respectively for war crimes. The sentences caused outrage in Kosovo, where many considered the verdict went against the just war against the Serbian regime in the 1990s. Protests became violent on Monday as protesters clashed with the police. The adoption of the law by the parliament and the election of the President were welcomed with fireworks and patriotic music by protesters outside parliament in Pristina. However, the election of the President could be subject to constitutional interpretation as, while the session started on October 6, which was the last day to elect a President, the results were not announced until 13 minutes after midnight.