The Central Election Commission (CEC) in Kosovo has approved over 70,000 applications for registering voters outside Kosovo for the early parliamentary elections of December 28.
The news was confirmed to Radio Free Europe by the CEC spokesperson, Valmir Elezi.
“According to preliminary data, during the 11-day period (November 26 – December 6), more than 84,700 applications were received through the CEC’s electronic platform for registration to vote from outside Kosovo, of which around 71,900 have been approved, while around 6,700 have been rejected. Approximately 5,900 applications are still under review,” Elezi said in written responses.
He stated that the majority of voters registered to vote by mail—over 51,000 of them—to send the voting package to one of the overseas postal addresses, while around 2,500 others registered to send their voting package to the CEC’s postal box in Kosovo.
“About 18,000 citizens have registered to vote in person at one of the diplomatic missions,” Elezi added.
In the parliamentary elections of February 9 of this year, the CEC had registered nearly 105,000 diaspora citizens to vote in that process.
In those elections, Kosovo organized in-person voting in diplomatic missions for the first time—specifically in 16 embassies and 14 consulates in 19 different countries around the world.
The early elections are being held because Kosovo’s political parties were unable to reach a consensus to move forward after the results of the February 9 elections, as no party secured the necessary numbers to govern alone.
Vetëvendosje Movement came out first, winning 48 seats in the Assembly, followed by the Democratic Party of Kosovo with 24 seats, the Democratic League of Kosovo with 20, the Serb List with nine, and the coalition between the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo and the Social Democratic Initiative with eight seats.
The remaining seats were reserved for minorities.
Several parties in Kosovo supported setting December 28 as the election date, arguing that many Kosovar citizens from the diaspora return home during the holiday season.
Among them was Vetëvendosje, which had won the majority of diaspora votes on February 9.
Other parties, however, pointed to potential issues with monitoring the process on December 28, as some international observers may not be available due to the global holiday period.
Nevertheless, Kosovo’s president, Vjosa Osmani, justified her decision by saying that the CEC needed sufficient time to prepare, as the country had held two other electoral processes in October and November—two rounds of local elections. /RFE
