(CN) - After a dominant win in parliamentary elections Sunday, Kosovo's center-left nationalist Prime Minister Albin Kurti was on track to end months of political deadlock and form a stable government.

Kurti's Vetvendosje, or Self-Determination, party won nearly 50% of the vote, far ahead of the opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo with 21%, and the Democratic League of Kosovo with nearly 14%, according to election authorities. Kurti was expected to govern with the support of non-Serb minority parties. Turnout was at around 44%.

"Congratulations on the biggest victory in the history of the country," Kurti said after results were announced. "Now we have a lot of work ahead of us."

Kurti's victory showed Kosovar voters were ready to end months of political impasse following Feb. 9 elections that saw Self-Determination win but fail to secure a majority, leaving Europe's newest country without a functioning government.

It took more than six months - and more than 50 attempts and interventions by the Constitutional Court before the parliament, the Kosovo Assembly - to finally elect a speaker. But the Assembly's work was stymied shortly afterwards when it could not agree on the election of a deputy speaker. The impasse led to Sunday's snap elections.

While providing stability in Pristina, Kosovo's capital, Sunday's elections are likely to keep tensions high between Kosovo and Serbia.

Kosovo is a self-declared Muslim-dominated independent state carved out of Serbia by a NATO bombing campaign in 1999 that forced Belgrade to withdraw its forces from Kosovo.

NATO intervened after Belgrade launched a counterinsurgency campaign in 1998 against the Kosovo Liberation Army and expelled about 800,000 ethnic Albanians from their homes in Kosovo.

Serbia and its allies - chief among them Russia and China, and five European Union countries, including Spain and Greece - do not recognize Kosovo.

The United States and the majority of the EU back Kosovo, but are trying to get Pristina and Belgrade to normalize relations as a precondition for the entry of both countries into the EU. Kosovo is also seeking membership in NATO.

Serbs were angered by the loss of Kosovo because the region has deep historical meaning for Serbs: Kosovo was the center of the Serbian Empire before its forces were defeated in the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 by the Ottoman Empire.

Serbia reacquired Kosovo in a war with the Ottomans in 1912 and the region became autonomous under communist Yugoslavia. Serbs and Kosovars have accused each other of committing massacres, repression and ethnic cleansing.

Since taking power in 2021, Kurti has taken an uncompromising approach toward Kosovo's Serb minority, located mostly in the north of the country along the border with Serbia.

Kurti has sought to force the Serb minority to accept Kosovo rule, cut off ties with Serb institutions such as post offices and healthcare facilities and refrain from expressing Serb nationalism. Serbs make up about 10% of the country's 2 million people.

Tensions became dangerously violent in 2023 after Kurti sought to ban Serbian license plates and install ethnic Albanian mayors who won elections in Serb-dominated parts of northern Kosovo that had been boycotted by the Serb population.

A wave of protests turned violent when 30 NATO peacekeepers and more than 50 protesters were injured in clashes that included stun grenades, Molotov cocktails and gunfire.

Serbian militant nationalists were accused of spearheading the violence against NATO troops. Later that year, a Serbian-trained paramilitary group was caught smuggling heavy weapons in the village of Banjska, and one policeman and three Serbs were killed in the resulting clash.

Following the violence, the U.S. and EU condemned Kurti for stoking the tensions and they enacted punitive measures against Pristina.

During the recent government deadlock, the EU withheld hundreds of millions of euros because of the lack of a functioning government and Kurti's actions against the Serb minority.

Brussels wants Kurti to restart long-stalled talks with Serbia, but this may prove hard due to the animosity between Kurti and Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vucic.

Following his win Sunday, Kurti warned the EU about Serbia's "drift" toward Russia, a sign that the Kosovo leader is not prepared to tone down his rhetoric.

The EU and U.S. want Serbia to recognize Kosovo and for the two countries to enter into full normalization of relations. But recent gains in relations have fizzled away, leaving very sour relations between Belgrade and Pristina.

Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.

Source: Courthouse News Service