Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci’s party finished first in national parliamentary elections, setting the stage for negotiations aimed at rapprochement between the newly independent Balkan state and Serbia.
Preliminary results released late Monday showed that Mr. Thaci’s Democratic Party of Kosovo had received about 33% of the votes cast in Sunday’s polls—giving it an edge in trying to form a governing coalition.
Mr. Thaci’s partner in the last government, the Democratic League of Kosovo, finished in second place, with more than 23% of the vote, according to Kosovo’s Election Commission.
“The elections were a referendum on the European future of Kosovo,” Mr. Thaci said after declaring victory. The vote was the first general election in Kosovo, a former province of Serbia, since it declared formal independence in 2008.
Kosovo is looking to European Union-brokered talks with its former political masters in Belgrade to help speed its economic integration with the rest of the continent.
Still, a surprisingly strong showing by the so-called Self-Determination movement, which wants to unite Kosovo with neighboring Albania, shows the challenges that remain to reconciliation in the Balkans.
More than 90% of people in Kosovo are ethnic Albanians. In 1999, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization waged an air war against Serbia in an effort to stop Serb attacks on the Albanians.
Serbia has refused to recognize Kosovo’s independence, and continues to govern the ethnic-Serb dominated north of Kosovo as though it were part of Serbia.
Belgrade also bars exports from landlocked Kosovo from crossing its territory, a significant impediment to trade for one of Europe’s poorest economies.
