Vetevendosje Movement

The European Union on Monday criticised the elections held on Sunday in mainly Serbian north Kosovo, saying the very low turnout meant they offered no "long-term solution" to the crisis in the north.

Taking Stock

Kosovo Acting President, Vjosa Osmani, L), and leader of Vetevendosje Movement, Albin Kurti, R), give a joint victory speech after the preliminary results of February 14 snap parliamentary elections showed Vetevendosje won by a landslide. Photo: BIRN/ Urim Krasnii

Political leaders in Kosovo have accepted the landslide victory of the Vetevendosje Movement in Sunday's snap parliamentary elections, with some saying they took responsibility for their own parties' poor showing.

The Constitutional Court ruled on Monday that Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti's government is illegitimate because it was voted in by a majority in the Kosovo Assembly that included a vote cast by MP Etem Arifi, who was given a prison sentence for corruption.

Extraordinary local elections held in the municipalities of Podujeve/ Podujeva and North Mitrovica are seen as sending two signals; in one, they confirmed the growing popularity of Kosovo's biggest opposition party, Vetevendosje - and, in the other, Belgrade's continued influence in the Serb-majority north.

"The voices of the victims are indispensable to justice."

These were the words of the president of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, Ekaterina Trendafilova, when she called on victims of crimes allegedly committed by four former Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas who have since become senior politicians to participate in their war crimes case at the Hague-based court.

Kosovo's largest parliamentarian party, the Vetevendosje Movement, LVV, staged a march in Pristina's main Skanderbeg Square on Friday to mark the 15th anniversary of its organisation - and the 21st anniversary of Kosovo's liberation from Serbian rule in 1999.

Movement driven by protests from the start:

Albin Kurti, Kosovo's candidate for Prime Minister, has only until next Tuesday to form a new government - while the two main parties, his own Vetevendosje Movement and the Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, have not yet reached a coalition agreement.

President Hashim Thaci has urged election-winning party Vetevendosje to nominate Kosovo's next Prime Minister within 48 hours, or risk sending the country into a "completely unnecessary" constitutional crisis.