As the deadline for 27 political entities to submit their candidate lists expires at midnight on Tuesday, the Central Election Commission of Kosovo (CEC) has announced that all candidates seeking to run in the June 7 parliamentary elections will undergo an institutional verification process.

Through this process, the CEC will check whether parliamentary candidates meet the legal criteria for participation in elections, in accordance with the Law on General Elections, specifically Article 30.

This was confirmed to KosovaPress by CEC spokesperson Valmir Elezi, who recalled that May 12 marks the end of the 11-day deadline for political entities to submit online the list of candidates for Kosovo’s next Assembly.

“As part of fulfilling the legal obligations related to the eligibility/capacity of candidates for certification, the Central Election Commission will send verification requests to the relevant institutions, together with the list of candidates seeking certification to participate in the elections, in order to assess whether they comply with Article 30 of the Law on General Elections. This is a practice followed by the CEC in previous electoral processes as well,” Elezi said.

According to Article 30 of the Law on General Elections, a person cannot be certified as a candidate if he or she is: an official with special status under the law on Public Officials; a member of the foreign service or diplomatic representative; chairperson or member of the CEC or a Municipal Election Commission; an official of the Electoral Complaints and Appeals Panel (ECAP); deprived by a court decision, including an ECAP decision, of the right to be a candidate; convicted within the last three years by a final court decision for a criminal offense with one or more years of effective imprisonment; failed to pay a fine imposed by ECAP or the CEC; or failed to comply with any ECAP order.

“Among the institutions from which the CEC will seek verification of candidates is also the Kosovo Judicial Council. Article 30 of the Law on General Elections states that a person cannot be a candidate if they ‘have been convicted in the last three years by a final court decision for a criminal offense, with one or more years of effective imprisonment.’ Therefore, for the implementation of this legal criterion, the CEC will request the Kosovo Judicial Council to verify the list of candidates in order to determine whether any of them fall under this restriction,” Elezi said.

The candidate verification process is expected to last several days.

During the 2025 electoral processes alone, the compliance of more than 8,000 candidates was verified, including 5,624 candidates in the local elections and 2,459 candidates in the two electoral processes for the Assembly of Kosovo.