PRISTINA
People in Kosovo are voting on Sunday in early parliamentary elections to decide the new makeup of the country's 120-member parliament.
The snap vote was called early May after the parliament was dissolved following a deadlock over a number of political disputes.
The voting began at 5 a.m. GMT at 798 election centers and is set to conclude at 5 p.m.
Throughout the election process, EU's Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo, NATO-led international peacekeeping force KFOR and Kosovan police will be in charge of maintaining security.
The voting will be monitored by Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe observers in the Serb-dominated northern region.
As many as 30,000 national and foreign observers have been assigned to monitor the elections all across the country.
A total of 1,235 candidates from 30 political movements are running in the elections, including five Serbian, six Bosnian and two Turkish parties.
Kosovo Democratic Turkish Party have 50 candidates for the parliamentary seeats while the Turkish Justice Party of Kosovo entered the elections with 24 candidates.
There is a threshold of five percent for the political parties in Kosovo to win seats at the parliament. Ten seats are allocated each for the Serbian minority and the other minority groups.
Prime Minister Hashim Thaci may have a third term in office if his Democratic Party of Kosovo wins the elections.
Today's polls mark the first elections to be held all across Kosovo including Serb majority municipalities, after Belgrade and Pristina signed a "breakthrough" agreement last year.
The agreement, hailed by the EU, allows holding elections in all parts of Kosovo, the establishment of an association of Serb majority municipalities, and the gradual integration of the judiciary and police administrations in northern Kosovo into the country's legal and administrative framework.
Kosovo, which unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008, is recognized by more than 100 states, including the U.S., Great Britain, France, Germany and Turkey.
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