The lists of candidates for mayor in Kosovo’s 2025 local elections once again fail to reflect gender balance. Out of a total of 206 candidates, only 20 are women, about 6.6%.

Among the parties running for mayoral positions, the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) and the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) lead with the highest number of women candidates, three each. They are followed by the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the Social Democratic Initiative, which have two women each, while the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) and Vetëvendosje (VV) have only one woman candidate each.

Meanwhile, a total of six women are running within political entities representing non-majority communities. Serb parties have nominated five women for mayor in Serb-majority municipalities, while one independent candidate has also joined the race. In addition, Nova Demokratska Stranka, a Bosniak party, has nominated a woman for mayor of Prizren.

Despite the fact that in the Assembly of Kosovo there is a growing trend of increasing numbers of women deputies elected by ballot, political party lists for municipal assemblies continue to reflect only the minimum gender representation required by the 30% legal quota, or less than 40% of the candidate lists. Moreover, although the Law on Gender Equality in Kosovo calls for equal representation of men and women in every political, economic and social field, the provisions of this law continue to be ignored.

From 2000 to 2025, only one woman has been elected mayor in Albanian-majority municipalities — Mimoza Kusari-Lila, who governed the municipality of Gjakova from 2013 to 2017.

Women in Kosovo have historically remained on the periphery of policymaking due to several structural barriers, including unwaged domestic work and limited access to economic resources such as property, capital, employment, income, party networks and material support. These inequalities automatically place women at a political disadvantage compared to male candidates, who enter the race for local government with significantly greater social and economic capital.

It is precisely these structural barriers that the few female candidates in the current local elections face during the final weeks of the campaign and in presenting their priorities for local governance.

Women’s candidacies in municipalities where victories are not expected

Xhevahire Izmaku has entered the race for the local elections with NISMA, hoping to remind Vushtrri’s citizens of her commitment to local issues during her time as a deputy at the central level.

“I was often accused of being a localist when I raised issues such as the lack of water in Vushtrri, the absence of public transportation or other local concerns while serving as a deputy in the Assembly of Kosovo,” said Izmaku.

To the race, she brings her extensive political experience. Izmaku began her career as the spokesperson for the Municipality of Vushtrri, later serving as a municipal assembly member and then as deputy mayor, representing the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK). She went on to serve three terms as a PDK deputy in the Assembly of Kosovo, from 2010 to 2019. After leaving PDK in 2021, Izmaku returned to the Assembly following the February 9, 2025 elections, winning her fourth term — this time as a member of the Social Democratic Initiative (NISMA).

She describes her work as deputy of Vushtrri as being essential, noting that before her election in 2010, Vushtrri had not had any representative in the Assembly. Izmaku also considers this period the proudest of her life.

“They tell me that, ‘If only you were a candidate for PDK,’ then they’d vote for me. But I tell them that PDK saw me as an obstacle,” she said, referring to her opposition to the party’s construction plans in Vushtrri. Izmaku resigned from all PDK structures in 2021 and joined NISMA in 2024.

Izmaku’s candidacy in a municipality where her party lacks a strong electoral base reflects a broader trend of women running in municipalities where their parties have little chance of winning.

In Drenas, Egzona Tërdevci is running for mayor under the banner of Vetëvendosje (VV). Before her candidacy, Tërdevci led VV’s Secretariat for Political Emancipation and served as the chair of the VV Center in Drenas. In 2021, she was elected municipal councilor and chair of VV’s assembly group.

However, since the post-war period, Drenas has consistently been governed by PDK. The central PDK figure in Drenas has been Ramiz Lladrovci, who served as mayor for three terms. In these local elections, PDK chose not to renominate Lladrovci. Dissatisfied with the party’s decision, Lladrovci decided to run for another term in an independent list.

According to Tërdevci, her candidacy in this municipality is not about the improbability of winning but rather a well-considered decision, grounded in her experience within the VV structures and her understanding of the local context in Drenas, gained over four years in the municipal assembly.

In these elections, she expresses greater optimism about the electorate’s attitude toward VV in Drenas. Unlike in previous elections, when residents would turn her away upon learning she was part of VV, this year they are inviting her into their homes to learn more about the program she is presenting. “They tell us they won’t vote for us because PDK has long been rooted in the mentality of Drenas, but they are still listening to us,” Tërdevci said.

Data from the Central Election Commission (CEC) on preliminary voting trends in Kosovo’s municipalities show that no party has nominated women for mayor in areas where the party has an established electoral base. Moreover, women candidates receive significantly less financial support from their respective entities to conduct their campaigns.

According to Democracy in Action (DnV), 50% of women candidates in the 2021 general elections financed their campaigns entirely with personal funds, while the remainder relied on a combination of personal funds and party support. The same report found that 75% of women candidates did not receive coverage for fuel expenses during campaign trips, and only 38% had access to logistical assistance from their party structures.

Although this report focused on the central elections, the situation is similar regarding campaign financing at the local level.

Throughout Kosovo’s cities, public spaces have been dominated by large banners of mayoral candidates from the major parties, while those of female candidates are far less visible. In Vushtrri, for example, Izmaku says there is not a single banner.

“It has been very difficult, since the campaign has been carried out mainly by volunteers and friends, as we have not had sufficient finances, given that we are not a parliamentary party,” she said. Izmaku also emphasizes that the lack of financial support is deeply felt, because aside from the office NISMA provides to coordinate field visits, there has been no other assistance to support her campaign financially.

But the situation is different for male candidates. According to Izmaku, large businesses in Vushtrri have aligned themselves with the major parties that are seen to be the likely winners, namely PDK and LDK, which have experience governing the municipality, and no one has offered her campaign financial support.

“When they ask me who is funding my campaign, I tell them: ‘my salaries,’” she said. “I tell them, come and look in Vushtrri, who has the billboards around the city. I pay the people in the office who are helping me with the campaign. What we can afford, coffee, bread, we all eat together.”

Even for Tërdevci’s campaign in Drenas, VV has not invested much. Although CEC data from the 2021 local elections show that VV had the highest campaign expenses at the national level, financial support for candidates has not been distributed evenly.

According to Tërdevci, the only female VV candidate for mayor in these local elections, she has received only 219 euros of support for a billboard and one sponsored post per week throughout the campaign. This amount represents a minimal fraction of the overall budget in these elections, compared to over half a million euros that VV spent during the 2021 local elections on advertising, representaion and conferences — highlighting the lack of financial support for women candidates within the party.

Tërdevci is allowed only one sponsored post per week, depending on the topic she chooses to address, which limits her campaign activities to the funding provided by the party.

“Compared to the other candidates running in Drenas, the campaign is absolutely not equal,” Tërdevci said. “Those who have the money to campaign are the ones with billboards on six-story buildings in the city.”

Both Izmaku and Tërdevci say they have financed their campaigns mainly from personal income, relying on occasional support from friends and family to cover some expenses.

A more unusual form of campaign financing has been used by Besa Shahini, who is running for mayor of Pristina with the Social Democratic Party (PSD). In addition to using her personal income, Shahini has primarily funded her campaign through small donations from citizens, publicly encouraging voters to contribute financially to her platform.

The lack of financial support has also affected the visibility and television coverage of female candidates’ campaigns. Although the Independent Media Council (IMC) requires that all political entities receive equal treatment and fair media coverage during election campaigns, in practice, priority and media space are largely given to male candidates.

According to the monitoring of these local elections by Democracy in Action (DnV), male mayoral candidates occupied about 88% of television airtime, while female candidates received only 12%. DnV data also show that during television debates in this period, 92% of participants were men, and only 8% were women political representatives.

So far, the Independent Media Commission (IMC) has not taken concrete measures against television broadcasters to address this inequality, leaving the issue confined to the formal framework of legal regulations without reflecting the reality of gender disparities in media coverage of campaigns. These inequalities in local campaigns are further exacerbated because campaign priorities and strategies are often determined by central structures within political parties. Consequently, the difficulties faced by women candidates are closely linked to the lack of sufficient support from the party structures they represent.

Local government programs that do not speak to women

Studies by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) highlight that women’s campaigns in Kosovo often depend on the priorities and ideological orientations of the parties they represent. Due to the strong influence of central party structures, local agendas remain largely determined by party leaders, limiting candidates’ independence in shaping their platforms.

A notably different, left-leaning campaign is being run by Besa Shahini, the PSD candidate for mayor of Prishtina. She is the former director and founder of the Kosovo Stability Initiative (IKS), an organization focused on governance and socioeconomic development, and served as Albania’s Minister of Education from 2018 to 2020. In these local elections, Shahini decided to run for mayor of Pristina because, as she explains, her political experience prevents her from merely criticizing the city’s deficiencies as any other ordinary citizen would. She felt she had solutions to address the capital’s problems.

In Prishtina, Shahini has been campaigning “door to door,” setting the priorities of her campaign herself, with the support of PSD structures.

“I entered this race without knowing where I stand, whether I have an electorate or people who support me,” she said. “Initially, my campaign priorities were the urban chaos of Prishtina and education. But when I started going out into the field, I realized that the main concern of the people in Prishtina is the high cost of housing. Therefore, together with the assembly members proposed for the Prishtina municipal assembly, we made this one of our campaign priorities.”

By focusing on social security, a universal minimum wage, progressive taxation and workers’ rights, PSD positions itself as a left-wing party and even refers to itself as the “progressive left.” While PSD is not a parliamentary party, it is competing in three municipalities in these local elections: Prishtina, Deçan and Kamenicë.

During her conversations with citizens, Shahini says she has observed how deeply rooted the ideological right-wing approach is in the political landscape. “The idea that, since we live in a market economy, the private sector does everything better than the public sector, is very present,” she said. “This belief is reflected in every decision of the Prishtina municipality and internalized in citizens’ expectations of local government.”

To challenge this mindset, she says longer and more in-depth conversations with citizens are needed, which she is attempting to carry out as part of her campaign.

Speaking about the support she is receiving from women in Prishtina, Shahini emphasized that, although women in the capital may be more economically independent than those in other municipalities due to the opportunities available to them, they tend to vote less than women elsewhere. According to her, this is because candidates for mayor of Prishtina have historically not addressed women directly.

“Once a woman becomes a mother, the public space in Prishtina ceases to be hers. Nothing makes her life easier,” said Shahini. When she first realized that women in Prishtina were not going out to vote, she was disappointed, but she later understood why this was happening.

“They talk about the tram, while you break your legs as soon as you leave the house, and the baby carriage breaks down at the first corner,” she said.

From a broader political perspective, research shows that the ideological divide between the right and the left in Kosovo remains unclear, as many parties operate more on a clientelistic and conservative basis than an ideological one. Most parties are positioned on the right wing, largely due to their stances on the free-market economy and the traditional values they pledge to protect.

In this context, women candidates face difficulties in advancing topics related to social issues, such as gender equality or family welfare, as these priorities do not always align with the central agendas of the parties they represent.

In the case of Izmaku, although the party she is running with identifies as social democratic, in practice, it has often pursued policies closer to the center-right and has formed alliances with right-wing parties such as PDK. However, according to Izmaku, in this campaign she has sought to emphasize priorities such as social welfare, highlighting the need for more public nurseries and greater employment opportunities for women in Vushtrri — particularly those aged 39 to 50, whom she identifies as the most inactive age group among women in the municipality.

For Tërdevci, whose party identifies as left-wing, addressing issues such as full-day schooling for students, day care for the elderly and the opening of five public nurseries remains a priority. In Drenas, there is only one public nursery, which, according to her, does not even remotely meet the needs of women in the municipality seeking to participate in the labor market.

Due to the influence of central party structures, the local election programs presented by female mayoral candidates reveal a gap between the formal representation of women and their real influence on the content of local policies.

As a result, issues such as gender-based violence, social services for victims of violence, prioritizing women’s employment, social housing opportunities and improving municipal infrastructure to ensure equal access to resources remain largely absent from local campaign programs.

Even in these elections, such issues have not emerged as priorities in candidates’ political programs, despite the fact that the Law on Local Self-Government assigns municipalities direct responsibilities in the field of social welfare, including the protection of women, children, persons with disabilities, minorities and marginalized communities.

Despite the structural barriers faced by women candidates for mayor and municipal assemblies in this year’s local election race, it remains to be seen whether, after October 12, the results will reflect at least a modest increase in women’s representation in municipal assemblies — similar to the rise observed in the Kosovo Assembly at the central level.

Feature image: K2.0

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