Kosovo MPs vote to dissolve parliament, pave way for snap election

Kosovo MPs voted on Thursday to dissolve parliament and trigger an early election, in a move that will add new delays to the deadlocked dialogue with Serbia.

The vote comes after the outgoing PM, Ramush Haradinaj, a former commander of ethnic Albanian rebels who battled Serbia in the late 1990s, stepped down in July. He had been summoned to a special court in The Hague, which is investigating crimes from that era, AFP said.

After 89 lawmakers in the 120-member assembly voted in favor of the motion, Haradinaj hailed it and said that the dialogue with Serbia “is one of the important topics.”

After the last parliamentary election held in Serbia’s breakaway territory in 2017, it took several months to form a government in Pristina. Serbia, China, and Russia do not recognize Kosovo, effectively shutting it out of the UN.