While Serbia waits for elections, Kosovo is struggling to snap out of its own cycle of elections and paralysis. The December parliamentary elections delivered a clear mandate for Albin Kurti’s Vetevendosje to govern. After a nine-month political stalemate in which no side could form a government following the February 2025 elections, the third Kurti government was sworn into office on February 11.
Yet a sword dangles over its head. Current President Vjosa Osmani’s mandate expires at the beginning of April, with a constitutional rule requiring parliament to elect a new President no later than 30 days before this, or face dissolution. This deadline was missed, and President Osmani attempted to dissolve parliament on March 5. However, the Constitutional Court ruled in March that every attempt to elect a new president, once initiated, should be allowed to run its (time-limited) course before parliament is dissolved.
The Kurti government has thus secured a reprieve until late-April to try to strike a deal on electing a new president and avoid another election. Whether it knows how to use this extra time is far from clear. Electing a new president requires the cooperation of at least part of the opposition. Unfortunately, building bridges with political opponents and striking compromises is not something that Kurti has a good track record with.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the good news is that 2026 has got off to a much calmer start than 2025, when the country plummeted into possibly its worst institutional crisis since the Dayton Peace Accords were signed some three decades ago. Political attention is still focused on the Serb-led Republika Srpska entity, which remains the biggest hive of activity.
In a peculiar twist, entity Prime Minister Savo Minic resigned for the second time in two months, only to be re-elected for the third time since last summer. With this, and the election of a new entity President, Republika Srpska has regained a degree of institutional stability. The same cannot be said for Bosnia’s state-level government, or the Federation government, both of which remain deadlocked and dysfunctional.
The calm and quiet in Bosnia will not last long, moreover – 2026 is an election year, with national elections due in October. Importantly, the outcome of the elections is highly unpredictable, particularly in Republika Srpska, where the opposition may face its best chance in a decade of unseating the ruling SNSD. With everything to play for in both entities, the political temperature will begin to rise by late-spring.
