Avdullah Hoti

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Avdullah Hoti
5th Prime Minister of Kosovo
In office 3 June 2020 – 22 March 2021
President	Hashim Thaçi Vjosa Osmani (Acting)
Deputy	Besnik Tahiri Driton Selmanaj Albulena Balaj-Halimaj Goran Rakić
Preceded by	Albin Kurti
Succeeded by	Albin Kurti
First Deputy Prime Minister
In office 3 February 2020 – 25 March 2020
Prime Minister	Albin Kurti
Preceded by	Behgjet Pacolli
Succeeded by	Besnik Tahiri
Minister of Finance of Kosovo
In office 8 December 2014 – 2 August 2017
Prime Minister	Isa Mustafa
Preceded by	Bedri Hamza
Succeeded by	Agim Krasniqi
Personal details
Born	(1976-02-04) 4 February 1976 (age 45) Ratkovac, Yugoslavia (now Ratkoc, Kosovo)
Political party	Democratic League
Spouse(s)	Servete Ukaj Hoti
Children	2
Alma mater	University of Pristina Staffordshire University
Signature

Avdullah Hoti (born 4 February 1976) is a Kosovan politician, who served as the Prime Minister of Kosovo^[a] from 3 June 2020 until 22 March 2021. He previously served as the Minister of Finance of Kosovo between 2014 and 2017 in the PDK/LDK coalition government.

In September 2020, Hoti signed the agreement on normalisation of economic relations with Serbia and accession to the Mini Schengen Zone, as well as on mutual recognition between Kosovo and Israel and the establishment of diplomatic relations. He has an active role in the European Union-mediated negotiations between the governments of Serbia and Kosovo.

Political career[]

He joined the political party LDK in 2006. He was elected as vice president of Pristina (Kosovo’s capital) in the 2008 communal elections. He served that job until the next communal elections in 2013, when his party lost the city. In the next year, he candidated in the parlamential elections as Minister of Finance and he was elected. He served the job until 2017 when the government was voted out by a no-confidence motion. Then, he was the coalition's candidate for Prime Minister of Kosovo in the Kosovan parliamentary election of 2017. He became the head of the LDK parliamentary group from 2017 until 2020, when he took office as First Deputy Prime Minister.^[1] He was nominated by the LDK to be his party's nominee for PM after the Kurti government failed a confidence vote, but his eligibility to be PM was questioned by Albin Kurti and his party on the grounds that one cannot form a government without first having the party that won the election enter government, and they demanded new elections. However, on 28 May 2020, the Constitution Court of Kosovo gave the right to the second party and Avdullah Hoti to form a government without elections. After the party that won the elections failed again to form a new government, the Court argued that Avdullah Hoti was eligible to proceed to be voted on by the Parliament as the new PM of the Republic of Kosovo. On 3 June 2020, Hoti was elected Prime Minister with 61 votes in favor, 24 against and one abstention.^[2]

Aleksandar Vučić, President of Serbia (left), Donald Trump, President of the United States (middle), and Hoti (right), singing the 2020 Kosovo–Serbia economic agreement in the White House, 2020.

On 2 August 2020, Hoti announced on his Facebook page that he was diagnosed with COVID-19 suffering mild symptoms, and that he would work from home in the coming two weeks.^[3]

On September 4, 2020, Hoti and Aleksandar Vučić, President of Serbia, signed an agreement on the normalisation of economic relations between Serbia and Kosovo at the White House in the presence of Donald Trump, President of the United States.^[4] The deal will encompass freer transit, including by rail and road, while both parties agreed to work with the Export–Import Bank of the United States and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation and to join the Mini Schengen Zone, but the agreement also included mutual recognition between Israel and Kosovo.^[5][6]

On 21 December 2020, the constitutional court of Kosovo ruled that the vote of lawmaker Etem Arifi, of the minority Ashkali Party for Integration, for the Cabinet of Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti was invalid and consequently "the Government did not have the majority of the votes of the lawmakers.” Arifi's vote gave the government 61 votes in the 120-seat chamber, and without it the vote would have failed. As a result, Kosovo went to snap elections and the Hoti government continued as a caretaker one until the elections were held.

Countries visited[]

List of official visits abroad made by Avdullah Hoti as Prime Minister:

#	Country	Year	Cities visited	Type of visit
1	European Union	25 June 2020	Brussels	Official visit
2	Albania	3 July 2020	Tirana	Official visit
3	France	7 July 2020	Paris	Official visit
4	United States	1–5 September 2020	Washington, D.C.	2020 Kosovo–Serbia agreement
5	European Union	6–8 September 2020	Brussels	Belgrade–Pristina negotiations
6	Albania	2 October 2020	Tirana	Meeting
7	North Macedonia	23 October 2020	Skopje	Official visit
8	Italy	3 November 2020	Rome	Official visit
9	Vatican City	5 November 2020	Vatican City	Official visit

Notes[]

a.

^ Kosovo is the subject of a territorial dispute between the Republic of Kosovo and the Republic of Serbia. The Republic of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence on 17 February 2008. Serbia continues to claim it as part of its own sovereign territory. The two governments began to normalise relations in 2013, as part of the 2013 Brussels Agreement. Kosovo is currently recognized as an independent state by 97 out of the 193 United Nations member states. In total, 113 UN member states are said to have recognized Kosovo at some point, of which 15 later withdrew their recognition. References[] ^ "Ministria e Financave". mf.rks-gov.net. Archived from the original on 24 June 2020. Retrieved 25 June 2020. ^ "Avdullah Hoti Kryeministër i ri, 61 deputetë japin votën pro". Gazeta Express (in Albanian). 28 May 2020. Retrieved 3 June 2020. ^ Anderson, Emma (2 August 2020). "Kosovo PM tests positive for COVID-19". Politico. Retrieved 3 August 2020. ^ Riechmann, Deb (4 September 2020). "Serbia, Kosovo normalize economic ties, gesture to Israel". Associated Press. Retrieved 4 September 2020. ^ "Documents signed at the White House cover wider scope than expected". European Western Balkans. September 4, 2020. Retrieved September 5, 2020. ^ Gearan, Anne (September 4, 2020). "Serbia and Kosovo sign breakthrough economic accord that is short of normal relations". The Washington Post. Retrieved September 4, 2020. Political offices Preceded by Albin Kurti Prime Minister of Kosovo 2020–2021 Succeeded by Albin Kurti Preceded by Behgjet Pacolli First Deputy Prime Minister 2020 Succeeded by Preceded by Minister of Finance of Kosovo 2014–2017 Succeeded by Agim Krasniqi This article about a Kosovar politician is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by . v t