Aqif Shehu

During the 1990s, most members of Kosovo's Albanian community boycotted Serbian state institutions and operated through parallel government structures. Shehu was elected to the parallel Albanian assembly in the 1992 general election as one of the representatives from Gjakova. During this period, the LDK was the dominant party within Kosovo's Albanian community.^[2]

Serbia lost effective control of most of Kosovo after the 1998–99 Kosovo War, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) organized new local elections for the province in late 2000. Shehu appeared in the lead position on the LDK's electoral list in Gjakova and was elected when the list won a majority victory with twenty-six out of forty-one seats.^[3][4][5] The elections were marked by violence; a Gjakova rally by LDK leader Ibrahim Rugova was interrupted by gunshots and electrical sabotage, and Shehu reported that grenades were thrown at the homes of some LDK members.^[6][7] After the election, Shehu was chosen as mayor.

In November 2001, he signed an agreement making Gjakova a sister city of Jamestown, New York.^[8]

Shehu appeared in the fourteenth position on the LDK's list in the 2001 Kosovan parliamentary election, which was held under closed list proportional representation, and was elected when the list won a plurality victory with forty-seven seats.^[9] He appears to have declined his mandate to continue serving as mayor.

He again led the LDK's list for Gjakova in the 2002 local elections and was elected when the list won a plurality victory with seventeen seats. He was chosen afterward for a second term as mayor.^[10][11]

In August 2003, Shehu oversaw the burial of forty-three Albanians who had been killed in the Meja massacre during the Kosovo War. During the funeral, he said that the massacre had shaken the civilized world and called for the Serbian government to provide more information on missing Kosovars from the wartime period.^[12] The following year, Shehu took part in negotiations to allow twenty Ashkali and Roma families displaced by the war to return to Gjakova.^[13]

Shehu's last years as mayor were marked by controversy and political instability. The Gjakova municipal council voted to remove him from office in late 2005, but their decision was overturned by UNMIK.^[14] The details of this situation do not appear to be available online, but there is evidence that several prominent LDK members in Gjakova turned against Shehu in this period.^[15]

Kosovo introduced the direct election of mayors in 2007. Shehu ran for re-election as an independent candidate and fared poorly, finishing in eighth place with under two per cent of the vote.^[16][17][18] He has not returned to political life since this time.