The constitution of the Assembly fails again: Are the mandates of the deputies at risk?

On July 7, the 43rd unsuccessful attempt by elected deputies to constitute the Assembly of Kosovo was recorded.

As in the past, opposition parties - including PDK, LDK, AAK, Nisma and Srpska Lista - refused to propose members for the commission that would organize the secret ballot for the speaker of parliament, considering this process incompatible with the Constitution.

In an open vote, they repeatedly opposed the appointment of Albulena Haxhiu from the Vetëvendosje Movement to this position.

Vetëvendosje, which won the majority of votes in February's parliamentary elections, insists that secret balloting is legitimate and wants to move forward.

In the July 7 session that lasted only a few minutes, deputies from PDK, LDK, and AAK took to the podium to call on Vetëvendosje to end, as they called it, the "political circus" - which prompted the chairman of the session, Avni Dehari, to request an interruption of their speech.

A similar scenario unfolded in the penultimate session on July 5, but it was held several hours late, due to, as it was said, a bomb threat in the Assembly, which turned out to be false.

On June 26, the Constitutional Court of Kosovo requested that MPs constitute the Assembly within 30 days, but did not explain what could happen in case of non-compliance with this decision.

Political parties continue to interpret it differently.

Before the July 7 session, Vetëvendosje Movement MP Mimoza Kusari Lila said that one of the consequences of not respecting the Constitutional Court's decision within the deadline could be the loss of MPs' mandates.

"It has not yet happened that in a legislature the mandate of all the deputies of the Assembly has been taken away, but there are 120 deputies of the 9th legislature whose mandate could be taken away, and then continue with the deputies who are on the lists of all political parties," said Kusari Lila.

She added that the Constitutional Court has indicated the procedure for constituting the Assembly and, according to her, no form of voting is excluded.

"Now either the Court can clarify its verdict, come up with instructions, or additional explanations, or the parties can agree to constitute the Assembly only to dissolve it and go to early elections. I see no other solution," said Kusari Lila.

Last week, the President of Kosovo, Vjosa Osmani, invited representatives of political parties to a meeting to discuss options for exiting the crisis.

She also mentioned the possibility of addressing the Constitutional Court for additional clarification./ REL