(ANSA-AFP) - PRISTINA, 05 APR - Lawmakers elected Kosovo's
most popular politician Vjosa Osmani as president Sunday,
overcoming an opposition boycott that had kept parliament short
of a quorum one day earlier. The 38-year-old law professor, a
standard bearer of a generation determined to fight corruption,
received 71 votes from the 82 deputies present, and was thus
"elected president of the republic", speaker Glauk Konjufca
declared. Osmani was backed by Prime Minister Albin Kurti and
his Vetevendosje movement which won more than 50 percent of the
vote in a general election in February. That poll turned the
page on a 120-member legislature which had been dominated by
former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerillas who fought Serb
forces in a bitter 1998-99 war. The victory on Sunday on the
parliament's third attempt resolved a stalemate caused by the
former guerrillas and minority Serbs both boycotting the vote on
Saturday. Osmani and Kurti must now mend a weak economy that
provides Kosovars with an average monthly salary of just 500
euros (less than $600), and has pushed youth unemployment to
around 50 percent. (ANSA-AFP).
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