Kosovo’s president sets parliament elections for Feb. 9 in a key test for the prime minister

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Kosovo’s president has set Feb. 9 as the date for the tiny Balkan country’s new parliamentary elections, a vote that’s expected to be a key test for Prime Minister Albin Kurti whose governing party won a landslide in 2021. President Vjosa Osmani announced the date in a decree published on her Facebook page and said she had consulted with all political parties, including Kurti’s governing left-wing Self-Determination Movement Party. Kurti has had a history of friction with the West, mostly over stalled talks on normalization with Serbia, which does not recognize Kosovo’s independence, proclaimed in 2008.