All media cover today’s meeting on election reform called by Kosovo President Hashim Thaci. Opposition parties did not attend the meeting arguing that Kosovo needs early parliamentary elections instead of an election reform.

President Thaci said: “because of the extraordinary elections in 2014 the election reform was interrupted and now it is time to resume the process. Kosovo has made significant progress since its first elections but more remains to be done. Avoiding international standards for elections has created a bad image for Kosovo in the past”.

“Being that Kosovo is a young state, the election reform is more complex. Kosovo needs to have an open debate on elections, the electoral system and the voting process. Kosovo needs an election reform”.

Thaci also talked about possible changes in the election of the President. He said there are two options: for the President to be elected directly by the people, or for the President to be elected by the Assembly but with changes in the voting process where 50+1 MPs need to be present, “and additional competencies for the President”.

Thaci also talked about changes in the voting process and said the election lists need to include less candidates. He also said that if members of parliament agree, it would be good to reduce the number of MPs from 120 to 100 or even less. Thaci also suggested adding two seats in parliament for representatives of the Montenegrin and Croatian communities.

“As far as the election threshold is concerned, there have been discussions to keep at 5 percent or to change it through an agreement between political parties. The current threshold favors the bigger parties and lowering the threshold would enable the smaller parties to focus on election zones”.