We should be ashamed.

Now I understand, as much as I don't want to agree, why it took us 27 years to document the names of those killed, massacred, and missing during the war. Because shamelessly, power, authority, and personal ambition are put before everything else in this society of lost opportunities.

It took almost 10 days to finally come up with a consolidated and documented list of war victims. After 28 years since the start of the war, we will no longer have to resort to the list of Natasa Kandic's Humanitarian Law Fund to show how many people suffered during the war in Kosovo.

According to the list formed, which is still considered preliminary, there are 11.407 people killed; 242 died as a result of the war, 1.578 disappeared by force. There are a total of 13.277 names, of which 12.230 died or disappeared by June 1999 and 997 after this period. Of this number, 1.241 were children.

The day the conference was held where the figures were revealed, I felt ashamed, as a member of a society that proved that for decades it did not prioritize accurately determining the number of people who died in the Kosovo war.

For years, the Institute was toyed with... sometimes opened and sometimes closed; sometimes supported and sometimes ignored - while it had only one task: to find the facts and definitively determine the number of victims who lost their lives during the war.

Meanwhile, we as a society turned our heads; we stood in solidarity with the victims of a massacre one day a year and engaged in high politics in small comments on social networks.

also Arberi July 29, 2026 It took Kosovo 9,909 days to document 12,230 war victims

Here, better than anywhere else, we have proven that love for our land and country is perhaps among our last priorities.

And everything we've been going through, especially the last two years, confirms the sentence described above.

* * *

The day before yesterday, the LDK held an extraordinary assembly, in which the party's delegates decided whether to keep Lumir Abdixhiku as chairman or dismiss him. Nothing else was planned for the future, such as the election of an acting chairman, the calling of internal elections, or any other procedural matter that would nevertheless demonstrate a seriousness of functioning within the oldest, most active party in Kosovo.

Out of 355 delegates, 30 decided not to be there. Out of 325 delegates, 170 voted in favor of Abdixhiku, while 152 voted against. In absolute numbers, Abdixhiku did not even receive 50% of the votes of all delegates, showing that the very close result proved that the division within the LDK is ultimately very large. And from the experiences of other times in the past, this generation of LDK politicians could also end up with a failed faction.

The year is far away. In 1998, if I am not mistaken, the first faction led by Hydajet Hyseni created the “new LDK”. Without power, this faction joined Rexhep Qosja’s LBD, a political entity that ceased to exist in 2000.

In 2004, a group of discontented people from the LDK, led by Edita Tahiri, would emerge. This would form the ADK, which as an entity with very little power could hardly survive. It became a crutch for the PDK, while securing for itself a high executive position – that of deputy prime minister and chief negotiator. In 2017, it would withdraw from active politics, and I do not believe that the ADK exists anymore.

In 2006, the chairs cracked and the party split in two: into those who wanted Fatmir Sejdiu and those who wanted Nexhat Daci as party chairman and leader.

The bitterness erupted with a hasty and lightning-fast split that culminated in the formation of the LDD. In the first elections it contested, in 2007, it won 10% of the vote and had 9 deputies. In the next elections, it did not cross the threshold... it languished for years and finally, in 2015, it returned to the LDK, now led by Isa Mustafa. The LDD was extinguished.

In 2020 - we already know the story of Vjosa Osmani's dismissal from all positions in the LDK and the formation of the GUXO faction, together with "comrade in arms" Donika Gërvalla.

Without the strength to compete alone, he joined VV and took a very large number of votes from LDK, pushing LDK into third place in terms of political weight.

Osman's return to LDK, in 2026, even though he had said "never" (never say never, especially in politics) proved that the votes he had collected in 2021 had been, rather, the result of inertia and support from VV, which has a wide network of activists on the ground, rather than political weight.

* * *

In 2026, another faction could easily emerge, of those seen as the conservative line of the LDK, that is, of those who had their greatest political achievements when Isa Mustafa led the party.

And perhaps we won't have to wait long for this faction, if the procedures of the coming months are not implemented according to a declaration approved in the LDK Assembly where the membership, especially the decision-making bodies in the party, and what will ultimately be key, the deputies, "must act according to the decision of the majority."

If, after Abdixhiku's political survival, LDK deputies do not participate in the process of electing the head of state, if for nothing, then to ensure a quorum, Kosovo will go to the elections again. And this could end with a new faction, and with further weakening of the LDK base. And the faction? Without money and support on the ground, it can hardly cross the threshold alone.

* * *

The LDK Assembly proved, if there was still any doubt, how futile the December 2025 elections were - and especially those of June 2026.

While the December elections were a consequence of the two-way government-opposition blockade until the moment when, instead of a coalition, the LDK's "principled stubbornness" was revealed ("we don't want, we don't vote"), the June elections were a failed bet by the LDK, which hoped to grow much, much with Osmani's return. Meanwhile, Osmani was aiming for another mandate as head of state, now through the kapiđik.

And, the result of all this is that for the LDK this is now the third truth, to enter into a coalition with the VV; to secure several ministries, perhaps even the position of the Speaker of the Assembly and to claim for a month or so that Kosovo is finally achieving political stability, without the fear of having to go to elections again.

Now that there is interest within the LDK to become part of the government, what was loudly repeated when the Constitutional Court's ruling on the election of the president of the state was issued (that no one can oblige deputies to sit in the hall or even vote because the mandate is individual), it turns out that it can be contested. And that in fact "if the majority in the party decides that a vote should be held, then a vote should be held". And where did the individual mandate go now? It has been lost along the way since the elections.

And in fact, what the Constitutional Court says in its ruling is that MPs must act in the best interest of the people they represent.

But unfortunately, this formulation is just a wish stamped in a document that everyone violates as they please and interprets as they please, depending on how the moment dictates.

* * *

As I write and recall moments like these and many others where an entire people were held hostage to the narrow interests of some group or individual, I understand, even though I don't want to agree, why it took us 27 years to document the names of those killed, massacred, and missing during the war.

also Arberi 1 August 2026 Haxhiu: Institute to continue documenting war crimes

Because shamelessly, power, and personal ambition are placed before everything else in this society of missed opportunities.

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