Albanian nationalism in Kosovo

The opposition Vetevendosje party hailed its victory in Sunday's parliamentary election in Kosovo after more than 80 per cent of the voters were counted, ousting the once dominant Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, which came in third place after the Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK.

Kosovo's two biggest parties - the Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, of parliament speaker Kadri Veseli and Isa Mustafa's Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, will run alone, as will Vetevendosje, or Self-Determination, led by Albin Kurti. If LDK wins, Kosovo will get its first female prime minister in Vjosa Osmani.

The last families left for Serbia in end of June 1999. The next day, someone set the houses on fire.

Two decades later, Zhakova/Zakovo remains in ruins. Like many other similar 'ghost villages' in Kosovo, its residents never came back.

Kosovo's electoral system favours alliances. Yet the co-ruling Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, part of four successive governments since Kosovo's 2008 secession from Serbia, looks like being left out in the cold, raising doubts about its chances of retaining power.

But, two days before the congress opened, the LDK Secretary General, Ismet Beqiri, has admitted that Mustafa may stay on - and that there are a number of other interested contenders.

"It is no secret, there are candidates," he told TV Dukagjini on Thursday. "This should be seen as normal. Our aim is for the new LDK team to win the upcoming parliamentary elections," Beqiri added.

Time Kadrijaj, an MP from the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, AAK party, said on Thursday that she has been invited for an interview by the Specialist Prosecutor's Office, which is probing wartime and post-war crimes in Kosovo.

The shock resignation of Ramush Haradinaj drew sympathetic comments from senior Kosovo officials and politicians on Friday after the prime minister was summoned for questioning by the Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor's Office in The Hague, which is investigating crimes committed during and just after the Kosovo war, from 1998 to 2000.

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.

Flora Brovina, an MP from the ruling Democratic Party of Kosovo, sparked angry reactions on Thursday when she showed a photograph to media which she said showed three Serbian soldiers raping an ethnic Albanian woman during the war.

At a meeting of Kosovo's Central Election Commission on Tuesday, Vetevendosje refused to vote in favour of certifying candidates from the Srpska Lista party to run in the May 19 polls, arguing that three of them had breached the constitution by resigning as mayors of the same municipalities in which they want to run for office again.