A FORMER minister-in-exile during Kosovo's 1990s rebellion against Serbian rule is poised to become the state's next prime minister.
The move comes after the US helped broker a deal to end more than five months of political deadlock.
Isa Mustafa was the only candidate nominated by the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), of which he is leader.
He is a former mayor of the capital Pristina and was finance minister-in-exile in the 1990s, when majority-Albanian Kosovo was a southern province of Serbia.
Kosovo broke away from Belgrade in 1999, when Nato bombed for 11 weeks to halt the expulsion of ethnic Albanian civilians by Serbian forces waging a two-year counter-insurgency war.
The LDK was then led by the late Ibrahim Rugova, who charted a policy of passive resistance against Serbian rule during the collapse of socialist Yugoslavia, only to be eclipsed by a guerrilla insurgency in 1998.
A deal reached late on Wednesday sees the LDK join forces with the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) led by outgoing prime minister and former guerrilla commander Hashim Thaci.
Mr Thaci's PDK won a June election, but fell short of a majority.
The LDK joined forces with other opposition parties in a bid to deny him a third consecutive term and the two sides spent the next five months arguing over the wording of the constitution.
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