Vetëvendosje (, , LVV or VV) is a social democraticYabanci, Bilge. (2015). "Populism and Anti‑Establishment Politics in Kosovo: A Case Study of Lëvizja Vetëvendosje." Contemporary Southeastern Europe, 3(2), 17–43. and democratic socialist political party in Kosovo. It is a member of the Progressive Alliance and the Socialist International, and an observer in the Party of European Socialists.
Vetëvendosje was founded in 2005 as a grassroots, anti-establishment, and pro-independence movement. It gained its initial prominence with protests against the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), and it later protested against the process of negotiations between the Kosovar Albanians delegations and Serbia over Kosovo's independence, claiming that the Kosovar Albanian right to self-determination was not subject to Serbia's approval. A major turning point for Vetëvendosje's position in Kosovo's politics took place in 2010, when the movement expanded its activity and registered as a citizen initiative at the Central Election Commission and ran for the 2010 Kosovan parliamentary election, where it established itself as the third-largest political party in Kosovo.
Owing to its left-wing stance, Vetëvendosje has been described as a populist anti-establishment movement that shows hostility towards Kosovo's politicians on one hand, and international actors that have executive power over Kosovo on the other. It promotes a socialist and welfare-oriented public order, political and civil freedoms, as well as internal and local self-governance and self-determination. On the other hand, Vetëvendosje supports policies to strengthen Kosovo's statehood, including the strengthening of the rule of law, police, and military, which from a traditional sense would be considered right-wing ideas. Despite its sovereignist stance, it still considers that Kosovo should eventually unify with Albania via a referendum, as an expression of the will of the people of Kosovo. They have also been described as an Albanian nationalist movement, with their views being mainly framed based on Albanian history and perceived injustices done by the Serbian state to the people of Kosovo. They see all citizens of Kosovo, including Kosovo Serbs, as victims of Serbia's aggression. The party has no relation to the former Kosovar branch of the SKJ.
Vetëvendosje had its best result ever winning 58 seats (with Vjosa Osmani's Guxo list) in the 2021 election and became the biggest party. In February 2025 it fell to 48 seats and could not form a government, causing a year-long Assembly deadlock with Albin Kurti as caretaker Prime Minister.
In the ensuing December 2025 snap election, Vetëvendosje won decisively with 57 seats. This enabled it to form a government, and in February 2026 the Assembly confirmed Kurti as Prime Minister for a third term (with minority-party support), ending the deadlock.
History Establishment and early actions
Vetëvendosje has its roots in the 1997-founded Kosova Action Network (KAN), a grassroots group promoting active citizenry and direct political participation of the masses."The Case for Kosova: Passage to Independence", 2006, Anthem Press, , Page xii KAN was founded in the United States by a group of international activists that supported the 1997 student protests in Kosovo against the occupation of the campus of the University of Pristina by the Yugoslav Police. During the Kosovo War, KAN participated in documenting war crimes and during 1999 and 2000 KAN campaigned for the release of Albanian prisoners of war held by Serbia. In 2003, KAN moved its headquarters to Kosovo. On 10 June 2004, KAN activists led by Albin Kurti protested against the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), fiercely criticizing its 'undemocratic' character, due to its lack of accountability to Kosovar citizens.
On 12 June 2005, KAN activists wrote the slogan "Jo Negociata – VETËVENDOSJE!" (Albanian for "No negotiations – SELF-DETERMINATION!") on the walls of UNMIK, marking the official transformation of KAN to Vetëvendosje. This was followed by the establishment of Vetëvendosje centers in most municipalities of Kosovo and in countries with a significant Albanian diaspora. On 25 July 2005, Vetëvendosje activists distributed copies of the UN Resolution 1514 in front of the UNMIK headquarters to "remind" it that Kosovo's right to independence was guaranteed by that resolution.
Criticizing UNMIK would become a central theme of Vetëvendosje's activities in the following years leading up to Kosovo's independence. They attempted to delegitimize UNMIK in front of the people of Kosovo by calling it an undemocratic neo-colonial regime whose employees were unelected but nevertheless took executive decisions. They blamed UNMIK for Kosovo's market being flooded by Serbian goods and for the unemployment that resulted from the public enterprises privatization process overseen by UNMIK. In other activities, Vetëvendosje activists opposed the decentralization of local government along ethnic lines and demanded the return of the bodies of missing persons from the Kosovo War, as well as an official apology from Serbia for its crimes committed during the Kosovo War.
Apart from criticizing UNMIK, Vetëvendosje also criticized local politicians, arguing that they did not represent the people but instead served UNMIK and could take no decisions without UNMIK's approval. In addition, it claimed that politicians in Kosovo could only be elected if they were approved by the international community. Therefore, the government was illegitimate. They boycotted the 2007 Kosovan parliamentary election and asked the people not to vote.
2007 demonstration
On 10 February 2007 Vetëvendosje organized a large demonstration against the Ahtisaari Plan and against the process of decentralization. The demonstration was attended by more than 60,000 people and took place in the streets of Pristina. UNMIK Riot Police were deployed after the rioters allegedly planned to storm the government offices. The UNMIK police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the crowd, which resulted in chaos. Two protesters were killed by the police. The first protester was killed while in the crowd, while the second protester was hiding from the tear gas inside Hotel Iliria when he got shot on the head. Apart from the two deaths, the protest resulted in an additional seven serious injuries and 73 minor injuries. One protester who was shot next to his heart survived after a long state of coma and had to live with the projectile inside his chest until his natural death in 2020.
A UNMIK internal investigation revealed that the protesters got killed by out-of-date rubber bullets that were fired from 10 of the Romanian members of the police force, but declined to file charges because it was unclear who of them had fired the fatal shots. On the other hand, the leader of Vetëvendosje, Albin Kurti, got arrested and charged with three offences: leading masses of people believed to have committed criminal offences, calls for resistance, and disruption of police measures. In 2010, an EULEX judge sentenced him to 9 months in prison, but given that he had already spent 5 months in custody and another 5 in house arrest, he got released.
Kosovo's independence and Vetëvendosje's entry into active politics Kosovar leaders accepted the Ahtisaari Plan and Kosovo declared its independence in February 2008. The independence was initially supervised by the European Union via its International Civilian Representative for Kosovo (ICRK). Vetëvendosje argued that Kosovo had gone from UNMIK administration to EU administration and factually nothing had changed. It also opposed the idea of Kosovo being a multi-ethnic country, stressing that with Albanians constituting over 90% of the population, Kosovo was one of the most ethnically homogenous countries in Europe, and that minorities should be integrated via socio-economic development, not by dividing people along ethnic lines.
Parallel to this, Vetëvendosje started to slowly shift towards directly participating in the political scene of Kosovo. In 2010 it registered at the Central Election Commission as a 'citizen initiative', to distinguish itself from political parties and to reject accusations that it was becoming part of Kosovo's political establishment, which it had criticized until that point. It would later switch to the status of a political party in 2017 in order to be allowed to enter into pre-electoral coalitions.
Vetëvendosje participated in the 2010 Kosovan parliamentary election and earned 12.69% of the votes, establishing itself as the third-largest political group in the Republic's Assembly. The elections were won by the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) and Hashim Thaçi remained Prime Minister of Kosovo until 2014. During this time, Vetëvendosje combined street protests with active participation in the parliament. In 2012, Vetëvendosje activists and MPs tried to storm the government building in order to stop the privatization of energy distribution. In 2013, Vetëvendosje MPs and activists attempted to physically block MPs of other parties from entering the Assembly building in order to stop the ratification of the Brussels Agreement signed by Kosovo's Prime-Minister Thaçi and Serbian Prime-Minister Ivica Dačić.
The establishment of the opposition block (2014–2017) In the 2014 Kosovan parliamentary election, Vetëvendosje emerged as the third largest party having gained just 13.59% of the total votes. PDK came first, but this time it did not have the necessary number of MPs to form a government, giving an opportunity to the second-largest party, the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) to establish the government if PDK failed. LDK formed a coalition with the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) and the Initiative (NISMA) and Vetëvendosje supported the coalition but refused to join it, because of the support that the coalition would have from the Serb List. Overall, the coalition and its supporters had more than 2/3 of seats in the Assembly and it seemed likely that they would establish the next government if PDK failed. Ramush Haradinaj of AAK was the coalition's candidate for Prime Minister.
The coalition elected Isa Mustafa as speaker of the Assembly, but the Constitutional Court of Kosovo ruled that the election of Mustafa was unconstitutional and that the speaker of parliament belonged to PDK, as the election winner. This led to a crisis and an inability of anyone to form the government, despite the opposition holding over 2/3 of the seats in parliament. In December 2014, LDK abandoned its coalition with the opposition and established a new government in coalition with PDK and the Serb List, with Isa Mustafa as the new Prime Minister. The PDK-LDK-Serb List coalition gave the new government a solid 2/3 majority of seats in parliament, but it also meant that Vetëvendosje now remained the largest opposition party and Albin Kurti became the leader of opposition. Since PDK was very unpopular among the voters of the opposition parties, LDK's move to enable PDK to remain in power was seen as betrayal by Vetëvendosje and it served as a catalyst for the upcoming 2015 Kosovo protests.
The protests started on 6 January 2015 and were led by Albin Kurti. The stated goals of the protests were the resignation of the Serb List minister Aleksandar Jablanović and the return of the Trepça Mines as a public institution of the Republic of Kosovo in order to prevent the privatization of the mines. The protests turned violent with dozens of protesters and Kosovo Police officers being injured.