Kosovo's 2025 election : party system 'decartelisation', uncertainties with government formation, and uneasiness with Trump

Abstract

On 9 February 2025, Kosovo held its 9th election for the national Assembly, just a week ahead of the 17th anniversary of its independence. Overall, according to the civil society observers, the election was well organised and clean, despite some irregularities with the vote collection of registered voters in the diaspora involving the staff of the Foreign Ministry and some moments with harsh anti-media rhetoric from the party in government during the campaign. The most important shortcoming occurred after the election when, due to failures of the electronic vote accounting system, the Central Election Committee had to resort to counting by hand and took 25 days to produce the first full official results. The electoral system is proportional; voters can vote both for a party and for up to ten Assembly candidates from the same party. About 70 per cent of the registered voters residing in Kosovo voted, which indicates the people’s perception that this election was important. There were around 78,500 diaspora votes from abroad - by mail and, for the first time, in embassies – or under nine per cent of the total votes. The record turnout at home surpassed even that of the first-ever democratic Assembly election held in 2001 (64.3 per cent). The highly competitive political parties did well in mobilising voters, but the turnout was likely stimulated also by the majority population’s uneasiness with the changing global political dynamics after the return of Donald Trump to the White House in the United States, which may affect the country’s future. This analysis first provides a context for the election that attracted such a high voter turnout. It then presents the results of the election, and it discusses the election’s consequences for the party system trajectory, the government formation, and the implications for Kosovo’s position on the international scene. Analytically, it utilises the cartel party (system) and the broader literature concerned with the recent global illiberal turn in politics.