Kosovo's parliament elected a new president just before a constitutional deadline expired, avoiding the automatic dissolution of the assembly and what would have been the fourth parliamentary election in less than two years. Justina Shiroka Pula, an economist and head of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo, won 81 votes in the 120-seat chamber in the first round, one more than the required threshold, shortly before midnight on Tuesday. Two ballots were declared invalid. She is the third woman to hold the office, which carries a five-year term.

Shiroka Pula, aged 72 or 73 according to differing reports, served as minister of energy and mining from 2008 to 2011 in a government led by Hashim Thaçi, and sat in parliament for the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) from 2011 to 2014. Prime Minister Albin Kurti, of the Vetëvendosje party, nominated her only hours before the vote, after earlier candidates failed to win the opposition's backing. After taking the oath, she pledged to safeguard Kosovo's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and said the mandate belonged to citizens and institutions rather than to one person. PDK leader Bedri Hamza said his party did not want to hinder justice but to establish it, and expressed confidence she would act with honour.

The presidential vote became entangled with a dispute over the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, the Hague-based court set up under international pressure and operating since 2016-2017 to try alleged crimes by former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) fighters during and after the 1998-99 war. On September 16, the court sentenced former president Thaçi to 25 years for war crimes including arbitrary detention, torture and murder; three other former KLA leaders received sentences between 13 and 25 years. The verdicts caused outrage in Kosovo, where many see the KLA's struggle against Serbian rule as a just war. Protests turned violent on Monday, with police reporting six officers and eleven protesters injured.

The PDK and the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo demanded that amendments to the law governing the court be passed on second reading before they would cooperate on a president. Kurti initially insisted the presidency should come first but then conceded. Parliament approved the amendments with 88 votes in an extraordinary session shortly before the presidential vote. The changes cap prison sentences at 15 years, require them to be served in Kosovo, allow presidential pardons for final convictions, and narrow the court's time frame and jurisdiction to offences linked to alleged organ trafficking at detention sites named in a Council of Europe report. Protesters outside parliament in Pristina greeted both votes with fireworks and patriotic music.

The outcome leaves open questions. Legal experts say Kosovo must honour its international obligations and that the amendments could face constitutional review. The presidential election itself may also be subject to interpretation: the session began on October 6, the final day, but the result was announced 13 minutes after midnight. For now, the vote spares Kosovo further political instability, though the clash between domestic anger over the verdicts and international legal commitments is far from resolved.