Kosovo lawmakers elect new president to avert snap election

Kosovo lawmakers elected economist and academic Justina Shiroka Pula as the country's new president in a marathon late-night session, just moments before a constitutional deadline that could have triggered a snap election.

The election late Tuesday marked a significant development in a political crisis in the small Balkan country that has caused legislative deadlock for more than 19 months and led to two early parliamentary elections.

Shortly before electing Shiroka Pula, lawmakers also approved a law restricting the powers of a special court in The Hague, Netherlands, established to investigate and prosecute war crimes allegedly committed by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the country's 1998-99 war for independence from Serbia.

During the extraordinary parliamentary session, Shiroka Pula received 81 votes in the 120-seat legislature. Outside Parliament, thousands of protesters had gathered to demand that lawmakers pass the legislation limiting the powers of the war crimes court, known as the Specialist Chambers.

Shiroka Pula recently served as president of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo. She will become the country's third female president since Kosovo declared independence after the war. She was a last-minute consensus candidate backed by the ruling Self-Determination movement and the largest opposition party, the Democratic Party of Kosovo.

The presidency in Kosovo is largely ceremonial, although the president plays an important role in foreign policy and serves as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Shiroka Pula will have to endorse the law limiting the Hague court's powers before it can take effect.

In her speech after taking the oath late Tuesday, Shiroka Pula said: "Today, I accept with great honor and full responsibility the duty of President of the Republic of Kosovo."

"This mandate does not belong to one person alone, it belongs to our citizens, our institutions, and the state for which many generations have sacrificed," she said.

Shiroka Pula's election came after more than two weeks of protests following a verdict by the Hague-based court that convicted four former Kosovo wartime rebel leaders of war crimes, including former President Hashim Thaci. They were sentenced to between 13 and 25 years in prison.

Kosovo has criticized the verdicts as unjust, arguing that the KLA, which Thaci led before entering politics, fought against Serbian oppression. Residents and politicians alike feared that the court's ruling would tarnish Kosovo's struggle for independence.

More than 13,000 people, mostly ethnic Albanians, were killed during the conflict in Kosovo, while about 1 million ethnic Albanian Kosovars were forced from their homes during the fighting.

Source: AP/UNB