Kosovo’s Endless Election Cycle Collides With the Shadow of Sami Lushtaku
Violence in Skenderaj, involving Sami Lushtaku and members of Albin Kurti’s governing movement, underscores the deepening tensions driving Kosovo toward another destabilising election.
Kosovo moved a step deeper into political instability on Wednesday after violent scenes erupted in Skenderaj, a municipality long associated with the power structures of the country’s former wartime elite, less than a month before the republic heads toward its third parliamentary election in just 16 months1.
According to statements published by the governing Lëvizja Vetëvendosje party, Hysni Mehani, the party’s branch leader in Skenderaj and a deputy minister in the Ministry of Finance, was physically assaulted while drinking coffee with party activists and former deputy Arjeta Fejza at a café in the town centre. The party accused Sami Lushtaku, the mayor of Skenderaj and a senior figure linked to the Democratic Party of Kosovo, known as PDK, together with his bodyguards and associates, of carrying out the attack.
Photographs released by Vetëvendosje appeared to show Mehani bloodied in the face2. The party alleged that he was first struck with fists and later hit in the head with a glass,…
