President of Kosovo

The President of the Republic of Kosovo (Albanian: Presidenti i Republikës së Kosovës, Serbian: Председник Pепублике Косовa / Predsednik Republike Kosova) is Head of State of the Republic of Kosovo.

The Kosovo President is elected indirectly, by the Assembly of Kosovo, in a secret ballot by a two thirds majority of all deputies of the Assembly. If no candidate achieves a two thirds majority, at the third ballot the candidate who receives a simple majority is elected. The vote in the Assembly should take place no later than a month before the end of the incumbent President’s term of office. He or she serves for a five years, once renewable term.

History of the office

The first post-war president, who served until his death in January 2006, was Ibrahim Rugova. His successor was Fatmir Sejdiu. When Sejdiu resigned from his post on 27 September 2010, Jakup Krasniqi served as acting president. On 22 February 2011, Behgjet Pacolli was elected as a president of Kosovo, which was quickly evaluated as unconstitutional move. On 4 April 2011, Behgjet Pacolli stepped down and it was decided that another candidate would be elected to serve for up to a year. A constitutional reform will be undertaken to allow for a popular vote for the president in 2013. On 7 April 2011, Atifete Jahjaga, Deputy Director of the Kosovo Police, with the rank of Major general, was elected as President.

Kosovo

Coordinates: 42°35′N 21°00′E / 42.583°N 21.000°E / 42.583; 21.000

Kosovo (/ˈkɒsəvoʊ, ˈkoʊ-/;Albanian: Kosova; Serbian Cyrillic: Косово) is a disputed territory and partially recognised state in Southeastern Europe that declared its independence from Serbia in February 2008 as the Republic of Kosovo. While Serbia recognises the Republic's governance of the territory, it still continues to claim it as its own Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija.

Kosovo is landlocked in the central Balkan Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pristina. It is bordered by the Republic of Macedonia and Albania to the south, Montenegro to the west, and the uncontested territory of Serbia to the north and east. In antiquity, the Dardanian Kingdom, and later the Roman province of Dardania was located in the region. It was part of Serbia in the Middle Ages, and many consider the Battle of Kosovo of 1389 to be one of the defining moments in Serbian medieval history. After being part of the Ottoman Empire from the 15th to the early 20th century, in the late 19th century Kosovo became the centre of the Albanian independence movement with the League of Prizren. As a result of the defeat in the First Balkan War (1912–13), the Ottoman Empire ceded the Vilayet of Kosovo to the Balkan League; the Kingdom of Serbia took its larger part, while the Kingdom of Montenegro annexed the western part before both countries became a part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia after World War I. After a period of Yugoslav unitarianism in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the post-World War II Yugoslav constitution established the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within the Yugoslav constituent republic of Serbia.

Hashim Thaçi

Hashim Thaçi ([hä'ʃɪm 'θɑ:t͡ʃɪ]; born 24 April 1968) is a Kosovar politician who was the first Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo and is the current Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister in the new cabinet led by Isa Mustafa, which assumed office on 12 December 2014. Thaçi is also the leader of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK). He rose to prominence as the political leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a paramilitary organisation which was active during the Kosovo War. In the meantime, he also served as head of a provisional government towards the end of and immediately after the war in 1999.

Early life and education

Hashim Thaçi was born in the village of Broćna, Srbica, SFR Yugoslavia (present-day Buroja, Skenderaj, Kosovo).

Thaçi studied philosophy and history at the University of Pristina. By 1993, he was living in Switzerland, where he joined the Albanian political émigré group. He pursued postgraduate studies at the University of Zürich in the departments of history and international relations. He became a co-founder of the People's Movement of Kosovo (LPK).

President

A president is the leader of a country or a division or part of a country, typically a republic, a democracy, or a dictatorship. The title "president" is sometimes used by extension for leaders of other groups, including corporate entities.

Etymologically, a president is one who presides (from Latin prae- "before" + sedere "to sit"; giving the term praeses). Originally, the term referred to the presiding officer of a ceremony or meeting (i.e., chairman), but today it most commonly refers to an executive official. Among other things, "President" today is a common title for the heads of state of most republics, whether presidential republics, semi-presidential republics or parliamentary republics.

Title

The title President is derived from the Latin prae- "before" + sedere "to sit." As such, it originally designated the officer who presides over or "sits before" a gathering and ensures that debate is conducted according to the rules of order (see also chairman and speaker). Early examples are from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge (from 1464) and the founding President of the Royal Society William Brouncker in 1660. This usage survives today in the title of such offices as "President of the Board of Trade" and "Lord President of the Council" in the United Kingdom, as well as "President of the Senate" (one of the roles constitutionally assigned to the Vice-President of the United States). The officiating priest at certain Anglican religious services, too, is sometimes called the "President" in this sense. However the most common modern usage is as the title of a head of state in a republic.

Atifete Jahjaga

Atifete Jahjaga (Albanian pronunciation: [ätɪˈfeːtɛ jähˈjɑːɡä]; born 20 April 1975) is a Kosovar politician and the fourth President of Kosovo. She is the first female President of the Republic of Kosovo, the first non-partisan candidate, and the youngest female head of state to be elected to the top office. She served as Deputy Director of the Kosovo Police, holding the rank of Major General, the most senior among women officers in Southeastern Europe.

Early life and education

Atifete Jahjaga was born in Gjakova, Kosovo, then a part of Yugoslavia, where she attended her elementary and secondary schools. She graduated from the University of Prishtina at the Faculty of Law in 2000. In 2006/07, she completed a graduate certificate program in police management and criminal law at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom. She has also received extensive professional training at the George C. Marshall European Centre for Security Studies in Germany and the FBI National Academy in the United States of America.