Kosovo MPs elect FM Thaci as new president

Legislators in Kosovo have elected Foreign Minister Hashim Thaci as the new president without the presence of opposition lawmakers, who have condemned his dealings with Serbia and Montenegro.

Following a Friday vote, the parliament’s election committee announced that Thaci received 71 votes. A total of 81 MPs were present in the 120-member legislature. Ten votes were also declared “invalid” by the election committee.

It was a third time voting was held as minimum requirements were not met in the first two rounds.

The outlook of a Thaci presidency, however, prompted thousands of opposition supporters to stage protest rallies in the capital, Pristina. Hundreds of them had already been camping out in tents in the city’s Skanderbeg Square.

Following the news about Thaci’s rise to presidency, protesters rallied outside the parliament and clashed with police by throwing Molotov cocktails and rocks, injuring at least 21 officers.

Security officers responded with tear gas and water cannons to disperse the crowd, detaining five demonstrators. Police officers also began to remove the tents raised at the Skanderbeg Square and blocked traffic on some streets around the legislative building.

Police authorities announced that they discovered 39 Molotov cocktails by the tents. Police also said that Molotov cocktails were thrown at the residence of Kosovo’s Prime Minister Isa Mustafa.

The development came as many of the opposition legislators in the parliament were barred from participation following their efforts to disrupt the parliamentary session with tear gas canisters. Other opposition members walked out of the voting session and only one of them remained at the election commission.

“With the greatest pleasure, with the highest responsibility, I will serve to everyone and be willing to cooperate with everyone, including the political parties and every segment of the Kosovan society,” Thaci said following the vote.

Opposition lawmakers have been disrupting legislative sessions since last September, with efforts involving the use of tear gas, pepper spray, whistles and water bottles to reject a deal between Kosovo and Serbia that grants more powers to ethnic Serbs in Kosovo.

In December, meanwhile, the Constitutional Court ruled that the agreement needed to be amended to be in accordance with the constitution.

The country’s opposition also rejects a border demarcation pact with Montenegro.

“Someone who has violated the constitution cannot be Kosovo’s president,” the leader of the main opposition Self-Determination Movement Party, Visar Ymeri, said at a news conference.

Kosovo officially declared independence in 2008, although it has not been recognized by neighboring Serbia.

Meanwhile, many of the leading opposition figures were partners with Thaci — a former guerrilla leader — during the war with Serbs, but later turned against him, accusing him of being power-hungry and corrupt.

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