Kosovo LDK’s New Leader Promises ‘Comeback’ After Election Thrashing

Lumir Abdixhiku has been elected the new chairperson of the Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, exactly one month after Kosovo's oldest party was humbled disastrously in parliamentary elections, promising to restore the party "to its original place".

He won the vote by a landslide in the first round with the support of 191 of 335 party delegates. His rivals, Gjilan/Gnjilane mayor Lutfi Haziri and Minister of Agriculture Besian Mustafa, won 116 and 16 votes respectively.

The 38-year-old economist becomes the youngest LDK leader ever elected, and his mandate will run until 2023. He has been an LDK member since 2017 and was elected to parliament in subsequent elections.

Abdixhiku's stature within the party grew year by year and in 2020 he was made Minister of Infrastructure in the short-lived government led by Vetevendoje's Albin Kurti, in which the LDK was a coalition partner.

When Kurti's government lost a no-confidence vote, tabled by the LDK itself in March 2020, Abdixhiku stood aside. He did not become a minister of Avdullah Hoti's new LDK-led cabinet.

He returned to the party before the February 14 snap elections as a candidate for MP, winning the third highest number of votes of any LDK candidate - 25,267.

After winning the leadership of the LDK on Sunday, Abdixhiku took to the floor to highlight the need for thorough reforms.

"We need to start from ourselves for our great comeback … The way ahead requires reforms and we will do reforms. I am sure we will prove the current doubters and permanent sceptics wrong," Abdixhiku said.

The LDK came third in the February 14 snap elections with only 12.7 per cent of the votes, around 111,000 votes in all, far behind the winner, Vetevendosje, which won more than 50...