The Kosovo Law Institute (KLI) has published report, which analyzes the list of candidates for deputies for the early elections of December 28, 2025, who have been involved in criminal cases.
IKL emphasizes that it has continuously advocated for the decriminalization of politics, in the sense that persons involved in criminal cases, even if they do not have specific legal prohibitions, should not be part of electoral lists and holders of certain public functions.
"Involvement in criminal cases consists of either active indictments or final convictions. As has been repeatedly emphasized, the request for persons who are involved in criminal cases not to run does not imply a violation of the principle of presumption of innocence but rather aims to send a positive message, in terms of assessing integrity.
According to the law on elections, the right to run for deputies in parliamentary elections is limited only to persons who have been sentenced by a final decision to one year of imprisonment or more in the last three years. Despite this, IKL, with the aim of strengthening the institutional integrity of the Assembly of Kosovo and the personal integrity of the people's representatives, has continuously lobbied for political parties to clear the lists of deputies from persons who potentially have problems with the law in terms of suspicions of involvement in criminal offenses, indictments, or sentences imposed by courts but who do not fall within the scope of the legal restriction," the IKL statement says.
The Kosovo Institute for Justice recalls that 24 political entities have been certified for these elections, while 1,179 candidates for MPs are part of them.
"Without violating the principle of presumption of innocence, as in other election cycles, in this case too, IKL, based on its data from monitoring judicial processes, has presented in this report the candidates for deputies who have been involved in criminal cases. Such candidates are considered all identified candidates who have active indictments or final criminal convictions.
The report emphasizes that according to the monitoring data of the KLI, out of 1,179 candidates for deputies, 28 of them or 2.37% are persons who have been involved in criminal cases. Of these, there are a total of 19 candidates for deputies who have active indictments. Meanwhile, this report has also identified a total of 12 candidates for deputies who have been convicted in the past by a final decision. While, of these 28 candidates, for 3 of them it was found that in addition to being convicted by a final decision, they also have active indictments. While, in this report there may potentially be cases of legal rehabilitation but that political entities have not provided information", the announcement states.
IKL finds that according to political entities, the highest number of candidates involved in criminal cases comes from LVV, which has nominated a total of 13 people who have been identified as being involved in criminal cases.
Expressed in percentage, it results that 11.81% of the LVV candidate list for deputies consists of persons who have been involved in criminal cases.
This ranking is followed by AAK, which has included in its list a total of six candidates who have been involved in criminal cases, making 5.45% of its list of MPs consist of persons who have been involved in criminal cases.
Next comes the Social Democratic Initiative with three candidates (2.72%), PDK with two candidates (1.81%), Serbian List with two candidates (6.06%), KDTP with one candidate (6.25%) and LDK with one candidate (0.9%).
"Regarding the criminal offenses in which the candidates are involved, the criminal offenses from the chapter of official corruption and criminal offenses against official duty and the criminal offense 'Use of a weapon or dangerous instrument' dominate."
If we refer to the findings of the KLI monitoring and research regarding candidates who have been involved in criminal cases, it results that compared to the elections of February 9, 2025, there has been a regression in all assessment points. The regression is noted in relation to the number of candidates for deputies who have been involved in criminal cases, the number of candidates with criminal convictions and the number of political entities that have included persons involved in criminal cases in their lists", the KLI announcement states. /Telegrafi/
