Kosovo/ Recount of votes in three municipalities and of conditional votes begins

2025-10-21 13:06:28, Kosova & Bota CNA

The recount in several polling stations and the counting of conditional votes for the local elections on October 12 began on Tuesday at the Counting and Results Center, after the counting of postal votes from outside Kosovo was completed, the Central Election Commission (CEC) announced.

The counting of ballots from voting outside Kosovo ended around midnight on Monday, according to the CEC.

Over 44,000 voters were eligible to vote by mail from abroad and had one month to do so, from September 17 to October 11.

Meanwhile, the recount has begun in three municipalities following the order of the Electoral Complaints and Appeals Panel.

There will be a recount in two polling stations in South Mitrovica, where there was no winner in the first round, as the candidate of the Democratic Party of Kosovo, Arian Tahiri, and that of the Vetëvendosje Movement, Faton Peci, fought a close head-to-head race and will face off in the runoff on November 9.

Last week, authorities announced that they had begun collecting data regarding suspicions of possible voter fraud in the South Mitrovica municipality.

For this municipality, there were significant differences between the initial polls, published immediately after the polls closed, and the preliminary result published by the Central Election Commission.

In Kamenica, there will be a recount at one polling station, which is not expected to have an impact on the result, as LVV candidate Kadri Rahimaj won the race in the first round with over 51 percent of the votes.

There will also be a recount at a polling station in Podujeva, where the race was convincingly won by another LVV candidate in the first round, Shpejtim Bulliqi.

The CEC said in the announcement that the counting of votes from the conditional voting process and votes from people with special needs will also begin on Tuesday.

Conditional voting took place in 54 special polling stations in 38 municipalities, while voting for people with special needs took place outside polling stations, through mobile teams during election day, she said.

According to CEC data, there are 2,119 envelopes with conditional ballots, while 3,467 people were registered as voters with special needs.

Local elections in Kosovo were held on October 12, but in most municipalities there will be a second round on November 9, as they failed to elect their mayors in the first round.

On election day, 39.58 percent of over two million eligible citizens within the country voted.

According to the CEC, in 21 municipalities the mayor was elected in the first round, while in 17 other municipalities, including Pristina, a second round will be held.

Previous practices have shown that victory in the first round does not guarantee final victory in the second round in cases where there is a runoff.

Of the municipalities with a Serb majority, only in Kllokot will there be a second round, while in the other nine, the Serbian List, the largest party of Kosovo Serbs, which has the support of Belgrade, won. /REL