The vote will determine who leads Kosovo’s stalled normalization talks with neighboring Serbia.
Prime Minister Albin Kurti has declared victory in Kosovo’s parliamentary election, but the results mean he must now try to form a coalition government.
Preliminary results released late on Sunday showed the premier’s leftist Vetevendosje party in first place with 41.99 percent. The vote was widely viewed as a referendum on Kurti, who has been at odds with his Western allies over relations with neighboring Serbia.
With 73 percent of votes counted, the opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo was set to come second with 22.68 percent of the vote. The Democratic League of Kosovo took 17.9 percent.
The results leave Kurti needing partners to govern. He had previously said he would not take part in a coalition but appeared to walk that back.
“We are the first party, the winning party that will create the next government,” he told reporters. “We will continue to finish the work that we have started.”
Al Jazeera’s Maja Blazevska, reporting from Pristina, said “Kosovo will go back to having a coalition government.”
Kosovars had headed to the polling stations on Sunday to elect a new parliament and cabinet in a contentious race that also focused on the economy and corruption, although relations with Serbia have long been the biggest issue in the country’s political debate.
It was the ninth parliamentary vote since the end of the 1998-99 war that pushed Serbian forces out of the self-declared republic.
A key test for Kurti, the vote will elect 120 legislators to the assembly, determining who leads Kosovo’s stalled negotiations on normalizing ties with Belgrade.
