Justina Shiroka Pula Elected Kosovo President in Late-Night Vote to Avert Snap Election

Kosovo’s parliament elected economist and academic Justina Shiroka Pula as the nation’s new president during a marathon late-night session, narrowly beating a constitutional deadline that would have triggered snap elections.

The vote marks a pivotal moment in the Balkan nation’s prolonged political crisis, which has sparked legislative deadlock for over 19 months and necessitated two earlier parliamentary elections.

Moments before her election, lawmakers also passed legislation restricting the powers of a special Hague-based court established to investigate and prosecute war crimes committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the 1998-99 independence war against Serbia.

Shiroka Pula secured 81 votes in the 120-seat parliament during an extraordinary session. Outside, thousands of protesters had gathered, demanding that the legislature pass the law restricting the Specialist Chambers’ powers.

A former president of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo, Shiroka Pula will become the country’s third female president since post-war independence.

She emerged as a last-minute consensus candidate, backed by the ruling Self-Determination movement and the main opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo.

While Kosovo’s presidency is largely ceremonial, office holders play a key role in foreign policy and serve as commander-in-chief. Shiroka Pula must endorse the law limiting the Hague court’s powers for it to take effect.

After taking the oath of office late on Tuesday, Shiroka Pula stated, “Today, I accept with great honour and full responsibility the duty of President of the Republic of Kosovo.”

She added, “This mandate does not belong to one person alone; it belongs to our citizens, our institutions, and the state for which many generations have sacrificed.”

Her election follows over two weeks of protests triggered by a Hague court verdict convicting four Kosovo wartime leaders of war crimes, including former president Hashim Thaci.

The four leaders received sentences ranging from 13 to 25 years.

Kosovo has denounced the verdicts as unjust, arguing that the KLA, which Thaci led before entering politics, fought against Serbian oppression. Residents and politicians feared the ruling would tarnish Kosovo’s independence struggle.

Over 13,000 people, mostly ethnic Albanians, were killed during the conflict, and approximately 1 million ethnic Albanian Kosovars were displaced.

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