Kurti's fourth cabinet passes 62-8 on a floor the PDK already wants the court to reopen

Kosovo's Assembly elected Albin Kurti's fourth cabinet on Sunday, 13 September, by 62 votes to eight, with no abstentions. Vetëvendosje holds 53 seats. Nine non-majority lawmakers joined them: eight from non-Serb minority parties and Nenad Rašić, who holds the communities and return portfolio. The Democratic Party of Kosovo, the Democratic League of Kosovo and the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo stayed out of the vote. Lista Srpska sat in the chamber and voted against.

Hours earlier, acting president and speaker Albulena Haxhiu had declared the 11th Assembly constituted even though the deputy speaker's post reserved for the PDK was empty. The PDK and the AAK said they would take that decision to the Constitutional Court. Some LDK members asked for a fresh constitutional reading. Sunday's government vote therefore sits on a floor that part of the opposition already calls irregular.

A cabinet that does not change

Kurti did not present a new programme. He told deputies that repeated elections had interrupted the last government and that the same work would now continue. The names match the third cabinet. Glauk Konjufca is first deputy prime minister and foreign minister. Donika Gërvalla-Schwarz is second deputy prime minister and justice minister. Fikrim Damka of the Turkish Democratic Party is third deputy prime minister for minority issues. Xhelal Sveçla keeps the interior ministry. Ejup Maqedonci keeps defence. Hekuran Murati keeps finance. Nenad Rašić keeps communities and return.

The supporting parties listed with Vetëvendosje include Guxo, Alternativa, the Turkish Democratic Party, the New Democratic Initiative of Kosovo, Vakat and Rašić's ZSPO, with additional non-majority votes from smaller lists. That is how 53 seats became 62. It is also why Lista Srpska's votes against did not threaten the arithmetic and did not give the new cabinet a Serb-list minister.

Kurti used the speech to promise an average public-sector salary above 1,000 euros, a doubling of child benefits, and a one-billion-euro programme for manufacturing and industry. He said the mandate was about restoring security and well-being to everyday life. He also said no court can taint the KLA, a line aimed at the Hague cases that still hang over the wartime generation, including the four former leaders whose verdict is due on 16 September.

The court problem

The PDK's missing deputy speaker is not a clerical gap. Kosovo's constitution and the Assembly's own rules treat community and opposition posts as part of what makes a legislature complete. Haxhiu's ruling that the house was constituted without that post is the hook for the PDK and AAK complaints. If the Constitutional Court accepts the case, Kurti IV can be sworn and still find its founding session described as defective.

That would not be a new condition. Kosovo has spent the period since the 7 June 2026 election in a deadlock over the speakership, the presidency and the right to form a government. Haxhiu is acting in both the speaker's and the president's roles. Kurti's decision to skip a new programme is a way of saying the last mandate never legally ended in his own account of the work.

Lista Srpska's presence in the hall, and its votes against, keep the Serb list inside the formal opposition rather than in a boycott. Rašić's yes vote keeps a different Serb name inside the cabinet. Those two facts will be read in Belgrade and in the EU facilitation office with more care than the salary pledge.

What 62 votes buy

They buy a government that can sign papers this week. They do not buy a quiet opposition or a settled Assembly. The Hague verdict on 16 September will land three days after this vote, on a city that already filled Skanderbeg Square for Hashim Thaçi and his co-defendants. Kurti's KLA sentence in parliament was delivered with that date in mind.

If the Constitutional Court moves quickly, the 62 votes may have to be argued again. If it does not, Kurti IV will govern with the same ministers, a disputed founding session, and a majority that depends on minority seats the PDK did not supply. That is a working cabinet. It is not a closed political file.