Bedri Hamza resigns as PDK leader, Vlora Citaku steps in

Bedri Hamza, president of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), submitted his irrevocable resignation from that post on October 21, 2026. The party’s leadership bodies named Vlora Citaku acting president the same day, while Hamza stays on as a PDK member and a deputy in the Assembly of Kosovo.

He first informed the party Presidency, then told a press conference in Prishtina that he was stepping aside to make way for new internal party elections. According to Radio Kim, he also cited greater involvement of young people in the leadership as a reason.

What did Hamza say in Prishtina?

He said political leaders must know when to take responsibility and also when to step back. By his account, he took over the party out of a sense of responsibility to the PDK rather than personal political ambition, and tried to keep it united during his term.

He separated leaving the leadership from leaving the party:

“I am not leaving the PDK. I am stepping down only as president, but not from my faith in our political values. As long as I live, I will be a loyal voter of the Democratic Party of Kosovo and a member of this great political family,” Hamza said at the press conference, according to KoSSev.

What does the Hague verdict have to do with it?

Hamza said he had expected to be able to hand the party over to former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) after September 16. On that day the Specialist Chambers in The Hague convicted Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi at first instance and sentenced them to a combined 81 years in prison for war crimes. Thaci and Veseli are both former PDK presidents, and Selimi comes from the Self-Determination movement.

Hamza called the verdicts unjust and said efforts to bring the convicted men back to Kosovo would continue. According to KoSSev, the PDK spent recent weeks leading a political initiative to amend the law on the Specialist Chambers, and Hamza insisted the party would not abandon that proposal. In early October, those legal amendments were at the center of the PDK’s talks with Prime Minister Albin Kurti, while protests continued in Prishtina and the process of electing a new president of Kosovo was under way.

Who leads the PDK until internal elections?

The decision to appoint Citaku was made by the party’s leadership bodies. Radio Kim, citing Koha, carried a statement from the PDK media office:

“Following the irrevocable resignation of Bedri Hamza as PDK president, the party’s leadership bodies have appointed Vlora Citaku as acting president,” the statement said.

The party announced that internal elections will be organized and held at all levels in the coming period.

The departure did not come without warning. On October 18, the PDK confirmed that Hamza had earlier said publicly he would resign as soon as the internal election process began and would not run again for president. Asked by Koha whether he had already resigned, the PDK Information Office replied at that point that no official decision had yet been made. Three days later, Hamza formally submitted his resignation.

Who is Bedri Hamza, and what is he leaving behind?

He was elected PDK president on November 17, 2025, after the resignation of Memli Krasniqi. He was the only candidate at the party convention, and some officials were unhappy with the election process. Enver Hoxhaj, then the PDK’s acting president, criticized the organization of the convention, arguing that there were no conditions for a fair contest.

In the June 2026 parliamentary elections, the PDK won 25 seats and remained the second-strongest force in the Assembly of Kosovo, with Hamza as the party’s candidate for prime minister. He was previously Kosovo’s finance minister, from 2011 to 2013 and again from 2017 to 2020, then governor of the Central Bank of Kosovo from 2013 to 2017, and mayor of South Mitrovica from 2021 to 2025.

Before him, the PDK was led by Thaci, Veseli, Hoxhaj and Krasniqi. With Hamza’s departure, the party will choose a president again less than a year after its previous change at the top.