Kosovo Serb MPs' Mass Resignation Causes Constitutional Dilemma

After all Kosovo’s ten Serb MPs from the Belgrade-backed Srpska Lista quit parliament in protest, the authorities must work fast to replace them with other Serb MPs to avert a constitutional crisis.

Kosovo parliament. Photo: BIRN

The Kosovo authorities must replace ten MPs from the Srpska Lista party with others from the Serb community after they resigned in protest against government measures intended to make Serbs start using Kosovo vehicle registration plates.

The mass resignation was part of a wider protest which started on Saturday and also involved the resignation of Serb police, mayors and judicial officials. Many police officers handed over their weapons and handcuffs on Monday.

The MPs’ resignations, which came after a meeting organised by Srpska Lista, could lead to the first parliament without the Belgrade-backed Srpska Lista representatives since the party’s establishment in 2013.

“I believe that what has happened is quantitatively the largest resignation [in the Kosovo parliament’s history] because we have never had such a resignation in the Assembly,” head of parliament Glauk Konjufca told media on Monday.

He insisted however that “we are not in a constitutional crisis, we are in the normal process of replacing them”.

Eugen Cakolli, researcher at the Kosovo Democratic Institute think-tank, told BIRN that “in this situation, the issue is slightly more complicated because, according to the law, MPs must be replaced by other MPs of the same political entity”.

According to Kosovo’s election law, the president, Vjosa Osmani, must ask the Central Electoral Commission, CEC, to “recommend the name of a person to fill the vacancy” for each seat. In this case, the CEC must recommend ten names “within five working days of being requested to do so”.

Kosovo law requires the recommended names first to be of the “next eligible candidate of the same gender who won the greatest number of votes” in the last elections on February 14, within the list of the political entity, in this case Srpska Lista.

If there is no eligible candidate of the same gender the law, the resigning MP should be replaced by “next eligible candidate who won the highest number of votes from the candidate list”.

There are only nine other candidates on Srpska Lista’s list who are eligible to be recommended as replacements for the resigned MPs by the CEC.

Srpska Lista had 20 candidates on its list at the February election. But MP Ivan Todosijevic was the convicted of inciting ethnic hatred for his statement that a 1999 massacre of Kosovo Albanians by Serbian forces was “fabricated” by “terrorists”.

Todosijevic was replaced by another MP from Srpska Lista’s candidates, leaving only nine potential candidates to replace the resigned MPs.

However, even the remaining Srpska Lista candidates on the list might not agree to replace the candidates who have resigned as part of the Kosovo Serbs’ protest. This could lead to the CEC needing to recommend ten other candidates.

Cakolli said that the tenth MP can be replaced by another party representing the ethnic Serb community.

According to the election law, “if there are no other eligible candidates on the candidate list” the replacement must be with a candidate from the political entity with the next most votes, which in this case should be from the ethnic Serb community.

Ten seats in the 120-seat Kosovo parliament are designated for Serbs.

Cakolli said that if they are granted a mandate, MPs must take an oath in parliament within three regular sessions after it is confirmed, or it will be terminated.

“So it remains to be seen whether the other Srpska Lista MPs will accept the mandate or simply will not come to the Assembly to take the oath,” he said.

If the replacement process fails, the country might enter a constitutional crisis, he added.

Albert Krasniqi from Kosovo NGO Democracy Plus told BIRN that “in the event that none of the representatives of the Serb community who were candidates in the elections accept the mandates, these positions cannot be replaced by other candidates. Therefore the seats would remain empty.”

Cakolli said if this happens, the Constitutional Court must rule on “how to proceed further in cases where there are no political subjects of that community to replace the candidates”.

Krasniqi said that although parliament could not function completely, “laws of vital interest could be approved or amended”, according to the law.