A LEFT-WING reformist party was headed for a landslide victory in Kosovo’s parliamentary elections yesterday, partial results showed, handing them a strong mandate for change from voters fed up with the political establishment.

The anti-establishment Vetevendosje (Self-Determination) party, long a critic of elites, took home some 48% of the vote, according to official election results with some 80% of ballots counted.

The triumph nearly doubled the party’s last electoral showing in 2019, capturing a growing hunger for fresh leadership in troubled Kosovo.

The snap polls came after a tumultuous year in which the coronavirus pandemic deepened social and economic crises in the former Serbian province, which declared independence 13 years ago.

Already home to one of Europe’s poorest economies, Kosovo is now struggling through a pandemic-triggered downturn, with vaccinations yet to start.

The next two largest parties trailed far behind, with around 13% and 17% respectively for the outgoing centrist Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) and the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) – a party of former rebels who have long dominated Kosovo.

Both camps admitted defeat, with outing Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti from the LDK pledging to be a “constructive opposition” in parliament. 

In the capital Pristina, jubilant Vetevendosje supporters honked horns, set off fireworks and gathered in Pristina’s main square to cheer their victory.

Once known for provocative stunts such as unleashing tear gas in parliament, the party started as a street movement in the 2000s protesting against local elites and international influence in Kosovo, which was a United Nations-protectorate after the war.

It joined electoral politics in 2011 and has tamped down its more radical antics in recent years. 

Vehbi Kajtazi, a political analyst, dubbed the triumph an “extraordinary” result for a “party that started its activity on the streets”.

Led by 45-year-old former political prisoner Albin Kurti, the party focused its campaign on an anti-corruption platform, accusing past leaders of squandering Kosovo’s first years of independence through graft and mismanagement. 

Since splitting off from Serbia over a decade ago, Kosovo has mostly been run by the former commanders who led the late 1990s rebellion of ethnic Albanian guerillas against Serb forces. – AFP, February 15, 2021.