Prishtina (Tirana Echo) – Kosovo will have a new government led by former KLA commander Ramush Haradinaj, who got parliament’s approval last Saturday. Opposition parties boycotted the vote.
Haradinaj, a former PM who leads the center-right Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) and a former guerrilla fighter of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), has pledged to advance dialogue with Serbia saying there was no other alternative. He has also promised to solve a border dispute with Montenegro, which has blocked the country’s internal political scene for months.
The vote follows several months of political deadlock over who should form the next government, after the main ethnic Serbian party Srbska Lista backed Haradinaj’s cabinet. Sprska Lista will receive 3 ministry posts, while non-Albanian and non-Serbian communities will also be present at ministerial level.
The key junior partner in the coalition, the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), will receive a deputy prime minister post and six ministries. The PDK leader, Kadri Veseli, was elected speaker of the parliament on September 7.
Haradinaj’s AAK gets three other ministries, while another junior partner, NISMA, will receive a deputy prime minister’s portfolio and three ministries.
Construction millionaire Behgjet Pacolli of the New Kosovo Alliance (AKR) will be foreign minister of the tiny impoverished Balkan state
The European Union oversees an ongoing process of negotiations between Kosovo and Serbia, in the hope that Serbia will agree to normalize relations with its former province which declared independence in 2008. The EU hopes that the dialogue will end years of hostility between the two neighbouring countries and eventually integrate both nations into the EU.
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