Avdullah Hoti

{{Infobox officeholder

|name = Avdullah Hoti

|image = Avdullah Hoti (2020-09-08) (cropped).jpg

|caption = Hoti in 2020

|office = 5th Prime Minister of Kosovo

|term_start = 3 June 2020

|term_end = 22 March 2021

|president = Hashim Thaçi
Vjosa Osmani {{Small|(Acting)}}

|deputy = Besnik Tahiri
Driton Selmanaj
Albulena Balaj-Halimaj
Goran Rakić

|predecessor = Albin Kurti

|successor = Albin Kurti

|office1 = First Deputy Prime Minister

|primeminister1 = Albin Kurti

|term_start1 = 3 February 2020

|term_end1 = 25 March 2020

|predecessor1 = Behgjet Pacolli

|successor1 = Besnik Tahiri

|office2 = Minister of Finance

|primeminister2 = Isa Mustafa

|term_start2 = 8 December 2014

|term_end2 = 2 August 2017

|predecessor2 = Bedri Hamza

|successor2 = Agim Krasniqi

|office3 = Member of the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo

|term_start3 = 2014

|term_end3 =

|birth_date = {{birth date and age|1976|2|4|df=y}}

|birth_place = Ratkovac, Yugoslavia
{{small|(now Ratkoc, Kosovo)}}

|party = Democratic League

|spouse = Servete Ukaj Hoti

|children = 2

|alma_mater = University of Pristina
Staffordshire University

|signature = Avdullah Hoti (nënshkrim).svg

}}

Avdullah Hoti (born 4 February 1976) is a Kosovan politician, who served as the Prime Minister of Kosovo 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 until the next communal elections in 2013, when his party lost the city. In the next year, he was a candidate in the parliamentary elections as Minister of Finance and he was elected. He served in that position 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.{{Cite web|url=https://mf.rks-gov.net/Page.aspx?id=1,5|title=Ministria e Financave|website=mf.rks-gov.net|access-date=25 June 2020|archive-date=24 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200624024327/https://mf.rks-gov.net/Page.aspx?id=1,5|url-status=dead}} 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.{{Cite news|url=https://www.gazetaexpress.com/avdullah-hoti-kryeminister-i-ri-61-deputete-japin-voten-pro/|title=Avdullah Hoti Kryeministër i ri, 61 deputetë japin votën pro|language=sq|work=Gazeta Express|date=28 May 2020|access-date=3 June 2020}}

File:President Trump Participates in a Signing Ceremony (50305615147).jpg, President of Serbia (left), Donald Trump, President of the United States (middle), and Hoti (right), signing 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.{{Cite web |last=Anderson |first=Emma |url=https://www.politico.eu/article/kosovo-pm-tests-positive-for-covid-19/ |title=Kosovo PM tests positive for COVID-19 |work=Politico |date=2 August 2020 |access-date=3 August 2020}}

On 4 September 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.{{cite web |last= Riechmann |first= Deb |url= https://apnews.com/3b7aca39c6829655d43de30f68497ed1 |title= Serbia, Kosovo normalize economic ties, gesture to Israel |publisher= Associated Press |date=4 September 2020 |access-date=4 September 2020}} 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.{{cite news|url= https://europeanwesternbalkans.com/2020/09/04/documents-signed-at-the-white-house-cover-wider-scope-than-expected/|title= Documents signed at the White House cover wider scope than expected|date=September 4, 2020|work=European Western Balkans|access-date=September 5, 2020}}{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-kosovo-serbia-agreement/2020/09/04/b1283f8c-eec0-11ea-99a1-71343d03bc29_story.html|title=Serbia and Kosovo sign breakthrough economic accord that is short of normal relations|last1=Gearan|first1=Anne |date=September 4, 2020|newspaper=The Washington Post|access-date=September 4, 2020}}

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.