Kosovo Ruling Party Loses Capital in Local Election Setbacks

Kosovo's ruling Vetevendosje party suffered a heavy blow in Sunday's mayoral election runoffs, winning only four of the 12 municipalities it was competing in, and losing in the capital.

Perparim Rama, a London-educated architect who ran for Pristina mayor for the opposition Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, won the race against Arben Vitia, former Health Minister in Albin Kurti's current government, by a narrow margin of 1,700 votes. Rama took 40,659 votes (51.07 per cent) while Vitia took 38,958 (48.93 per cent).

"In Pristina we will govern with full care and responsibility. It is an extraordinary achievement for the LDK and the capital," LDK leader Lumir Abdixhiku said after his candidate was confirmed as the winner.

Twenty-one of 38 municipalities in Kosovo which did not give a majority to any candidates in the first round on October 17 elected mayors this Sunday, in what was considered a key test for the governing Vetevendosje party.

It came to the local elections with great expectations after its landslide win in the legislative elections earlier this year, when it became the first party since Kosovo broke away from Serbia in 1999 to win more than half of all the votes cast.

All three other main parties, the LDK, the Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, and Alliance for the Future of Kosovo AAK - which even together did not muster the number of votes Vetevendosje won in February - celebrated on the evening of October 17.

While the PDK won Mitrovica South, Ferizaj/Urosevac, Skenderaj/Srbica and Hani i Elezit/Deneral Jankovic, the LDK took Peje/Pec and Lipjan/Ljipljane, and the AAK won in its stronghold of Decan/Decane and in Suhareke/Suva Reka.

Rama himself, who had returned from London, where he runs an architect...