PACE: June 7 elections in Kosovo were calm, but with structural challenges

“The June 7, 2026 early parliamentary elections in Kosovo were held in a calm, orderly and professional atmosphere, without major incidents,” says the election observation report of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), presented today at the Assembly’s September session by rapporteur Iulian Bulai (Romania, ALDE), as announced on the official pace.coe.int website.

According to the report, “the Central Election Commission administered the elections effectively, electoral complaint mechanisms worked well, and voters were able to exercise their right to vote freely.” The PACE delegation “congratulates the people of Kosovo for their continued commitment to democracy in difficult circumstances.”

At the same time, the elections “revealed persistent structural challenges,” including “an uneven playing field resulting from the misuse of administrative resources by the government in office; voter fatigue and declining turnout; a campaign lacking genuine policy debate and direct debates between the main candidates; growing threats from AI-generated disinformation, hate speech and digital violence” — while “women in public life were increasingly subjected to digital violence, including image manipulation, deepfakes, blackmail and sexist language.”

The delegation reminds the Assembly that the country’s president must be elected by October 6 to avoid another dissolution, stressing that “the main challenge is not only to organize credible elections, but also to ensure that the results produce functional institutions.” The warning is that “continued institutional vacuum and successive elections harm democratic governance, public trust and Kosovo’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations.”

“Elections alone cannot resolve a deeper political deadlock. Repeated elections may reproduce the same balance of forces, unless parties become more willing to negotiate, compromise and form stable coalitions,” the PACE report says.

(In the report, PACE clarifies that all references to Kosovo in the text are understood in full conformity with UN Security Council Resolution 1244 and without prejudice to Kosovo’s status.)