Kosovo votes for new parliament and Cabinet to lead stalled normalization ties with Serbia Kosovo will hold a parliamentary election on Sunday considered a key test for Prime Minister Albin Kurti whose governing party achieved a landslide win four years ago.
The other contenders are the Democratic Party of Kosovo, or PDK, whose main leaders are at The Hague tribunal accused of war crimes, and the Democratic League of Kosovo, or LDK, the oldest party in the country that lost much of its support after the death in 2006 of its leader, Ibrahim Rugova.
Kurti has been at odds with Western powers over some Cabinet actions last year, such as a ban on using the Serbian dinar and transfers from Serbia to Kosovo's ethnic Serb minority members who depend on Belgrade's social services and payments.
It is the ninth parliamentary vote in Kosovo since the end of the 1998-1999 war between Serbian government forces and ethnic Albanian separatists that pushed Serbian forces out following a 78-day NATO air campaign.
Kosovo is also suffering after Washington imposed a 90-day freeze on funding for different projects through the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has been key in promoting the country’s growth.
