Shpend Ahmeti

Prosecutors have launched an investigation into whether a photograph shown to media by Kosovo MP Flora Brovina on Thursday, which she said showed three Serbian soldiers raping an ethnic Albanian woman during the war, is authentic.

The president of the Kosovo Assembly said this at a joint press conference with representatives of the provisional Pristina institutions, Hashim Thaci, Ramush Haradinaj, and Shpend Ahmeti, one of the coordinators of the dialogue team.

The opposition Social Democratic Party, PSD, led by MPs who left the opposition Vetevendosje party in March, is getting closer to the ruling coalition, analysts say - driven by its criticism of the latter's approach to the EU-led talks with Serbia.

The Mayor of Pristina, Shpend Ahmeti, on Wednesday became the new leader of the Social Democratic Party, PSD, which he and a number of other MPs joined after leaving the main opposition Vetevendosje party.

Pristina's mayor Shpend Ahmeti resigned from the main Kosovo opposition party, Vetevendosje, late on Wednesday, several months after he won his second mandate as its mayoral candidate - highighting serious internal problems within the party.

Preliminary results from Kosovo's Central Election Commission, CEC, held good news for the opposition Vetevendosje party and the Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK - and for the governing Alliance of the Future of Kosovo, AAK. It was bad night for the Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK.

As Kosovo waits for official results from Sunday's local elections, some 17 municipalities already seem set for runoffs, according to preliminary data from local NGO Democracy in Action (DIA), which monitored the process. 

Kosovo citizens go to the polls on Sunday to vote for mayors and members of assemblies in the country's 38 municipalities, hoping a change in power will lead to a change in their daily lives.

The main battle is focused in the capital, Pristina, which is also the only municipality governed by the opposition Vetevendosje Movement.

Kosovo marks the last day of the local election campaign on Friday, as it prepares for Sunday's elections, now being held for the second time since 2013 also in the northern Serb-majority towns.

Less than three weeks before polling day in the local elections in Kosovo on October 22, the race is hotting up in the capital, Pristina, where eight candidates are running for the position of mayor.

Voters say their expectations are linked more to basic needs that directly affect their daily lives than political party progammes.