Wrote: Endrit Berisha
Through a video on TikTok, it is alleged that the stance of some citizens in support of the Democratic Party of Kosovo's candidate for prime minister in the February 9, 2025 elections, Bedri Hamza, was published.
"Citizens disappointed with Kurti, we will vote for Bedri Hamza, he keeps his promises and develops the country," is the inscription placed on the the video published by "tavnikcitypdk" on September 25.
The truth?
After checking the footage, hibrid.info has confirmed that the video in question is old. Although the description states that the citizens interviewed are disappointed with the current Prime Minister Albin Kurti, the content in the video has nothing to do with the parliamentary elections that will be held next year.
The video was published by the “Bedri Hamza” Facebook page on October 10, 2021. At that time, it was the campaign for the local elections. Bedri Hamza was running for mayor of Mitrovica. “Thank you very much for your appreciation and trust! I will always be at the service of the wonderful citizens of Mitrovica,” Bedri Hamza’s page wrote on Facebook in the description of the published video.
Hamza won the election in the first round, on October 17. He received 53.69 percent of the vote, according to results in the Central Election Commission website.
Hamza is now the PDK's candidate for prime minister in the elections scheduled for February 9.
Video published on TikTok So far it has received over 1900 likes and 225 comments.
Hibrid.info has on several occasions dealt with misinformation content related to candidates for prime minister in the upcoming parliamentary elections. PDK candidate Bedri Hamza has been the subject of several of them (see here, here and here).
Analyze:
The TikTok account "tavnikcitypdk" has published a video claiming to be citizens' statements in support of Bedri Hamza as the PDK candidate for prime minister. The video is captioned as saying that citizens are disappointed with current Prime Minister Albin Kurti.
But after verification by hibrid.info, it turns out that the video was from the campaign for the local elections in 2021, when Hamza was running for mayor of Mitrovica.
According to hibrid.info's working methodology, this TikTok publication falls into the "Manipulation of facts" category.
Manipulation of facts
“Fact manipulation” is a rating given to news content that uses facts known to be accurate but interprets them in a distorted manner. These reports typically use accurate information to draw incorrect conclusions or claims, thereby misleading the media content consumers’ conclusions about the actual meaning of the facts presented.