Kosovo Assembly Elects New President

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, March 05, 2002

Kosovo Assembly Elects New President

The Kosovo Assembly, on Monday, elected ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova as the president of the Yugoslav province, according to news reports reaching Belgrad.

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The Kosovo Assembly, on Monday, elected ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova as the president of the Yugoslav province, according to news reports reaching Belgrad.

Rugova, a veteran leader of the Democratic League of Kosovo ( LDK), won the election with 88 votes for, 3 votes against and 13 abstentions. The assembly also elected former Mitrovica mayor Bajram Rexhepi as the prime minister.

The result of the election was the fruit of a power-sharing agreement reached Thursday between three main Kosovo Albanian parties: the League of Democratic Kosovo (LDK), the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) and the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo ( AAK).

According to the agreement, Rugova of the LDK and Rexhepi of the PDK would respectively take the posts of president and prime minister, while members from the AAK would take two of the nine posts of ministers.

The Kosovo Assembly, which came into being after the general election held last November, had experienced a three-month-long crisis of over the presidential election before the major Albanian parties resolved differences under United Nations (UN) mediation.

While remaining part of Yugoslavia, Kosovo has been ruled by the U.N. and NATO since 1999. The Kosovo Assembly has no right to make any decision on the status of the province and the U.N. can veto any decision made by the local institution.

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