Parliamentary Elections, 9 February 2025

On 9 February 2025, Kosovo held parliamentary elections for all 120 seats in the Assembly, using a direct proportional representation voting system (International IDEA n.d.a). 20 of the Assembly’s 120 seats are reserved for ethnic minorities in the country, which include Serbs (10 seats); Roma, Ashkali and Egyptians (4 seats); Bosniaks (3 seats), Turks (2 seats), and Gorans (1 seat). (IFES 2025). 

Elections are conducted by the country’s Central Election Commission, an 11-member body. Ten members of the Commission are nominated by the six largest political parties in Kosovo, while the chairperson is nominated by the country’s president and elected by the Supreme Court (International IDEA n.d.b). Elections in Kosovo are governed by articles 66 and 67 of the country’s Constitution (see: Kosovo 2020), the 2023 Law on General Elections, and other general legislation adopted by the Central Election Commission (EU EOM 2025a).

Kosovo last held snap elections in 2021, after the Vetëvendosje party lost a no-confidence vote over its handling of the country’s COVID-19 response and the Kosovar Constitutional Court ruled that elections must accordingly be held (IFES 2025; Emini 2021). The government elected in the 2021 was the first since Kosovo’s founding in 2008 to complete its full four-year term. (EU EOM 2025a). The incumbent Lëvizja Vetëvendosje (LV) party again won the plurality of seats in the Assembly in 2025 with 48 seats total, 10 less than in the outgoing parliament. The PDK and LDK won 24 and 20 seats, respectively (EU EOM 2025a; AP 2025). As of 19 November, the Assembly remained in protracted stalemate with an interim government only. A Speaker was elected in August but failure to secure a coalition prompted President Osmani to call early elections for 28 December 2025 (International IDEA n.d.) 

The EU’s Election Observation Mission noted that the elections were peaceful, competitive and generally well-conducted, but marred by poor organization, harsh rhetoric and undue pressure (welfare/employment incentives) on voters in Serb-majority areas by Serbia and the Srpska Lista (SL) partyhttps://perma.cc/6RNM-QXLW. The political discourse in both social and traditional media was particularly hostile towards women candidates, with commentary criticizing appearance, emotional state, or marital status, and promoting traditional gender role (EU EOM 2025b).

Vetëvendosje-nominated members of the Central Election Commission attempted to block certification of the SL candidate list and to block the disbursement of public funds to the party. The ruling party also attempted to link the SL and Serbia to a 2023 terrorist attack in Banjska(EU EOM 2025a), reflecting a continuing distrust and animosity between the country’s Serbian and Albanian populations. 

Further, the EOM observed that the Central Election Commission lacked management capacity and field coordination, with delays in electoral preparations including appointment and training of lower-tier election bodies. Voting centres were unable to procure counting machines, effectively prepare and distribute voter education materials, and collect and count out-of-Kosovo voting ballots from expatriates outside of the country. Voting centres also faced staffing shortages, especially among campaign monitors, voter education trainers, and data entry clerks. ( EU EOM 2025a). There were critical delays in announcement of polling station and final results (EU EOM 2025b).

Several electoral management hurdles were reported including delayed and unclear instructions which caused problems with recruiting and training of temporary staff. In many instances polling station staff missed or were unable to perform key procedures such as integrity checks, confirming ballot validity, and faced difficulties adhering to the results protocol. In addition to these management issues, some technical failures on election night also affected the announcement or results. Moreover, missing equipment, and malfunctions of software seemed to delay the start of preferential vote counting to six days ( IDEA, 2025)

Incidents of obstruction and threats against journalists increased as the campaign progressed; the Association of Kosovo Journalists raised concerns about verbal attacks on the media by LVV figures. Media representatives attributed the increasing hostility toward the press to violent campaign language (EU EOM 2025b).

There were 2,075,868 registered voters, an increase of 174,888 from the 2021 elections. Turnout was 46.55 per cent, around two per cent lower than in 2021 but higher than the previous five parliamentary elections held since 2007 (International IDEA n.d.d). The Central Election Commission reported that a little more than 27,000 of the votes cast were invalidated, though no list of reasons were provided for why some of these ballots did not count. (EU EOM 2025a; Kosovo Central Election Commission n.d.).

Innovations

The Law on General Elections (Kosovo 2023) intends to promote greater gender inclusivity by offering financial incentives to political parties and groups whose deputies include more than 30 per cent women 443 women ran in the February 2025 elections, 34.64 per cent of the total. While this was above the 30 per cent quota given in the 2023 Law on General Elections, it was also a ‘negligible increase’ when compared to previous parliamentary elections (EU EOM 2025a).