Xhorxhina Bami and Milica StojanovicBelgrade, PristinaBIRNApril 24, 202316:21Brussels says boycott of local elections in Serb-majority north meant the results offered no solution to the crisis there — although government ministers insisted they could work with them.
Voting center at “Haziz Sylejmani” School in North Mitrovica. Photo: BIRN
The European Union on Monday criticised the elections held on Sunday in mainly Serbian north Kosovo, saying the very low turnout meant they offered no “long-term solution” to the crisis in the north.
“These elections do not offer a long-term political solution for these municipalities. This can only happen through permanent return of Kosovo Serbs to the institutions, and for Kosovo to enable this return,” the EU press release said, emphasizing that “work on the establishment of the Association/Community of Serb majority Municipalities needs to be finalised as soon as possible”.
It added: “The EU regrets that not all parties and communities made use of their democratic right to participate and vote in the elections,” noting that “the very low turnout, in particular among Kosovo Serb citizens, shows that this process is not and cannot be considered business as usual”.
It continued: “Participation in electoral processes has the aim to ensure that the voices of the communities the elected leaders represent, will be heard.”
Only 1,567 citizens, about 3.47 per cent of registered voters, had voted by 7pm on Sunday in the Serb-dominated north, according to the CEC. Some 45,095 citizens had the right to vote in the four municipalities.
According to preliminary results of the Kosovo Central Election Commission, CEC, the candidates of the ruling Vetevendosje Movement won in North Mitrovica and Leposavic, while candidates of opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, won in the two other Serb-majority municipalities Zvecan and Zubin Potok.
Despite the setback caused by a Serbian boyott, the Kosovo government on Monday seemed determined to continue with the existing results.
PM Albin Kurti claimed the municipal elections were “calm and with no incidents,” but described the atmosphere as one of “fear and blackmail, therefore the participation of citizens in these elections was low. The boycott was imposed by the threatening campaign of official Belgrade and its criminal tools on the field in the north”.
However, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on Sunday called the boycott “a peaceful uprising of Serbian people”, who “will no longer tolerate exclusively imposed solutions, cruelty, mistreatment, wounding, shooting, just to get a sentence of praise from Brussels and Washington.”
“I’m afraid that many people didn’t understand that”, Vucic told the media in Belgrade on Monday.
Vucic said he suspected Kurti would try to use the results of the elections to say: “Well, I want the Association of Serbian Municipalities, but North Mitrovica does not want to be in the Association of Serbian Municipalities, Leposavic too, they do not want to be [in the ZSO], the leadership of those municipalities do not want to be in the Association of Serbian Municipalities,” referring to the fact that Vetevendosje candidates won in these two municipalities.
Vucic told the media in Belgrade on Monday that “the unique message” of Kosovo Serbs who boycotted the elections was that “we want our voice to be heard, for you to listen to us and you will not be able to work without us and without what we want”.
Vucic said only 13 Serbs in northern Kosovo had voted in total on Sunday, “two of them by mistake”, claiming that at some election polling stations no one came to vote at all.
Only one Serbian candidate in all four municipalities was in the race. Sladjana Pantovic ran as an independent candidate for Zvecan municipality. She received five votes.
The leading candidate for mayor of Leposavic, Aleksandar Jablanovic, had withdrawn on April 20, citing lack of conditions.
“We call on our citizens and supporters who were ready to vote for us to not go to polling stations on Sunday. There are no adequate conditions for elections to be held,” Jablanovic said.
His withdrawal left Leposavic with no Serbian candidate, while Serbs make up the vast majority of the population there.
The deputy leader of the Belgrade-backed Serbian party in Kosovo, Srpska Lista, Milan Radojicic, said the Serbian people in Kosovo would “never allow” the Serb-majority municipalities in the north to be led by those who won “1 or 2 per cent of the votes”.
Srpska Lista, which won the majority of the votes in all the four municipalities in the previous elections, did not participate in Sunday’s elections.
But the Kosovo Minister of Interior, Xhelal Svecla, claimed the new mayors in the north of would not have problems in their work.
He told Radio Free Europe on Sunday that “the law will be applied throughout the country”, adding that, “in the north, the difficulties are more specific, but there will be no problems”.
The extraordinary elections took place due to a mass resignation of Kosovo Serbs in early November 2022, which included the resignation of the four mayors of these municipalities.
The next high-level meeting between Kosovo and Serbia, within the EU-mediated dialogue, will be on May 2 in Brussels.
The EU envoy for the dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak, wrote on Facebook on Sunday that “the agenda will include the formal endorsement of the Declaration on Missing Persons, the presentation of the first draft Statute of the Association/Community of Serb majority municipalities in Kosovo by the Management team, and pressing current issues”.
The heads of negotiating teams on April 4 compiled a document on a Declaration on Missing Persons, which is expected to be confirmed in the high level meeting on May 2. On April 18, one month after the verbal agreement on the implementation annex to a deal on normalization of relations in Ohrid, North Macedonia, a monitoring committee was established.
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