Isa Mustafa began his political career in the early 1980s, when he became the head of the municipal government of Pristina, from 1984 to 1988. He won a second term as Mayor of Pristina in November 2009. On 1 December 2013, he lost re-election to the position of Mayor of Pristina, in what was seen as a major upset, to upcoming politician
Shpend Ahmeti. The upset was especially dramatic seeing as it happened in what had been historically known as a Democratic League of Kosovo stronghold. On 8 December 2014, he became the Prime Minister of Kosovo in a coalition with the
Democratic Party of Kosovo. With a
PhD in
Economics, he claimed his government would be focused on the economic development of the country. While addressing the
Assembly of Kosovo on 22 September 2015 regarding
an agreement with Serbia on autonomy for Kosovo's
ethnic Serb minority and another
agreement defining the border between Kosovo and Montenegro, Mustafa was
pelted with eggs by opposition Assembly lawmakers. He later continued his address while being shielded with an umbrella by his bodyguards. On 10 May 2017, Mustafa lost a vote of no-confidence and decided not to stand in the next election. Instead he nominated
Avdullah Hoti as the Democratic League candidate for prime minister. Mustafa stayed on as Prime Minister until his successor
Ramush Haradinaj was elected by parliament in September 2017 following a
parliamentary election. In January 2018, Isa Mustafa was diagnosed with
Guillain-Barré Syndrome. After being diagnosed in Kosovo, he began treatment in at a hospital in
Pforzheim,
Germany, and his health condition improved. On 3 August 2019, Isa Mustafa was re-elected as leader of the Democratic League of Kosovo for the third time. On 10 July 2020, Mustafa announced on his Facebook page that he was diagnosed with
COVID-19. On 1 August 2020, he revealed on his Facebook page that he had fully recovered from the disease. On 15 February 2021, Mustafa announced he would be standing down as the leader of the Democratic League of Kosovo after a poor result in the
2021 elections. He officially resigned at the LDK convention on 14 March 2021, and was succeeded by
Lumir Abdixhiku, who named Mustafa as the honorary president of LDK the same day. == Government ==