3 yıl önce

Kosovo parliament elects Vjosa Osmani as president

Lawmakers in Kosovo elected and swore in a new president for a five-year term, the Balkan nation's second female leader in the post-war period.

Reuters

In this file photo, acting president in Kosovo Vjosa Osmani speaks during a news conference after preliminary results of the parliamentary election in Pristina, Kosovo, February 15, 2021.

MPs have elected Kosovo's most popular politician Vjosa Osmani as president, overcoming an opposition boycott that had kept parliament short of a quorum one day earlier.

The 38-year-old law professor, one of the standard bearers of a younger political generation determined to fight corruption, received 71 votes from among the 82 lawmakers present, meaning she is "elected President of the Republic", speaker Glauk Konjufca said.

Osmani was backed by Prime Minister Albin Kurti and his leftist movement Vetevendosje which claimed more than 50 percent of the vote in a general election in February.

The Sunday win followed a stalemate that had prevented her from being elected late Saturday.

Osmani stood in as president for several months for Hashim Thaci, a former guerilla leader who was charged last November with war crimes.

In addition to economic problems and social tension that remains following its war with Serbia in the 1990s, Kosovo has struggled to stem the coronavirus which has killed 1,900 people.