Lumir Abdixhiku was elected the president of the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) on Sunday.
The center-right party held an extraordinary meeting to vote for the new leadership, following the resignation of Isa Mustafa after a devastating defeat in the February 14 elections.
Abdixhiku, 37, ran against Lutfi Haziri and Besnik Mustafaj, and was able to win 191 votes from 328 party delegates, thus avoiding a run-off.
The youngest leader in the history of LDK, he joined the party in 2017, when he was first elected a member of parliament. Upon his second election as MP in 2019, he became minister of infrastructure in the short-lived Kurti government, which was voted out in less than two months, after the LDK walked out of the governing coalition.
One year later, the party was able to get only half of the votes it got in the previous election, only about 13%, making this the worst result in its history since its creation in 1989.
Former leader Isa Mustafa, who officially resigned today, said he didn’t feel responsible for the loss. “The decision to break up the coalition with [Kurti’s] Vetevendosje was a good decision because between the partnership with the US and the goals and orientations of Vetevendosje, chose to have a partnership with the US,” Mustafa said on Sunday.
Abdixhiku thanked the previous leadership and promised to lead reforms that would bring the party back in power.
