Kosovo parliament elects Justina Shiroka Pula president with 81 votes

Eighty-one votes, six minutes to spare

Kosovo's parliament elected Justina Shiroka Pula as president in the early minutes of 7 October. She took 81 votes in the 120-seat assembly and needed 80 [8][10][11].

The ballot averted a fourth parliamentary election in under two years in one of Europe's poorest countries [10]. It also ended a standoff that stopped the assembly legislating for months [2]. The price was a law change curbing the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, passed minutes earlier [8][9].

Eighty-four lawmakers took part. Shiroka Pula won 81, Eliza Hoxha of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) took one, and two ballots were declared invalid, Turkiye Today reported [8]. The secret ballot opened six minutes before the midnight deadline [7]. Big News Network noted that the count finished 12 minutes after midnight, which some experts said left room for a legal challenge, though none had been announced [7]. The Constitutional Court had ruled on 23 September that the 60-day window would close on 6 October, after which the assembly would be dissolved [8]. Failure would have sent voters back to the polls, as happened in June [10][11].

Shiroka Pula was born in 1953. She heads the Kosovo Academy of Sciences and Arts and served in government from 2008 to 2011 [8][10]. Accounts differ on the title: Turkiye Today described that post as minister of energy and mining, Reuters called it minister of the economy [8][10].

The deal that made the vote possible

Albin Kurti's Vetevendosje struck a deal with the opposition PDK to amend the law governing the Kosovo Specialist Chambers [8][9]. In return, the PDK backed his presidential candidate [8][9].

Parliament voted on the court amendment before it moved to the presidential ballot [8]. The amendment limits the court's jurisdiction and sets a maximum sentence of 15 years for some offences [8][9]. It allows some sentences to be served in Kosovo and opens the way for presidential pardons [8][9]. The original text would have stopped the court prosecuting war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the war [8][9]. It would have restricted jurisdiction to crimes inside Kosovo in the immediate aftermath of the conflict [8][9]. Kurti had earlier called the bill hasty [9]. Gulf News reported that the amendment was negotiated tightly in the hours before the midnight deadline [9].

Earlier in the day Kurti put forward several candidates [8]. Opposition parties rejected them all before he proposed Shiroka Pula in the evening [8].

Why the court change matters

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers sentenced former president Hashim Thaci and three other former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commanders on 16 September [10][11]. Together the four received 81 years for war crimes during the 1998-1999 conflict [10][11]. Thaci alone got 25 years [9]. The amendment does not touch those sentences: all four have said they will appeal through the court's existing process [8][9].

Police fired tear gas and water cannon on the Monday before the vote to disperse demonstrators [10][11]. The protesters wanted the court changes approved [10][11].

After the bill passed, thousands gathered near parliament [8][9]. Fireworks went up over Pristina [8][9]. The court was set up under Kosovo law to prosecute crimes by ethnic Albanian guerrilla fighters during and immediately after the 1998-1999 war [8][9]. It sits in The Hague [8][9]. Opposition parties and war veterans' groups have criticised it for years [8][9].

A deadlock that had already cost three elections

Vetevendosje has won three legislative elections since February 2025, including snap polls in December 2025 and June 2026 [2]. None gave it the two-thirds majority needed to install a president [2]. Parliament approved a new Kurti-led government on 13 September by 62 votes of 120, ending three months of paralysis [2].

In late August Kurti agreed with the Democratic League of Kosovo, which holds 18 MPs, to back law professor Bekim Sejdiu for the post [2]. A day later six LDK lawmakers said they would not follow their leader [2]. The assembly had already missed a 5 March deadline, when opposition parties boycotted the session and the 80-MP quorum failed [6]. The presidency is largely ceremonial [10][11]. Filling it has repeatedly destabilised Kosovo politics because it takes a two-thirds majority [10][11].

Months of deadlock also stalled the legislative reforms required for EU integration [2]. That threatened access to some pre-accession funds [2].

What happens next

Shiroka Pula took the oath in the assembly hall and said she would serve all citizens [8]. She pledged to protect Kosovo's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity [8]. The four convicted former KLA leaders will pursue their appeals at the Specialist Chambers [8][9].

Neither side has said what the amended law means for pending cases. No challenge to the post-midnight timing of the vote had been announced [7].

Months of paralysis had stalled the reforms Kosovo needs for EU integration [2]. With the presidency settled, that backlog is the assembly's next test.