Serb List: We do not participate in the vote for the dismissal of the mayors of the municipalities in the north
SL- the largest party of Kosovo Serbs – announced on Sunday that it will not take part in a vote on the dismissal of the Albanian mayors of four Serb-majority municipalities in northern Kosovo, which is set for April 21.
“The position of the Serbian List is not to participate in the referendum called by Albin Kurti [Prime Minister of Kosovo], because he did everything for it to fail,” said the chairman of the Serbian List, Zlatan Elek, on Sunday at a press conference in North Mitrovica.
He said that “impracticable procedures” have been established for the April 21 vote and that the voter lists “do not reflect the real situation on the ground” and that the number of Albanians on the voter lists “has increased”.
“For two months, the number of voters in all municipalities has increased disproportionately, by 433 percent,” said the chairman of the Serbian List. Elek did not provide any evidence for his claims about the increase in the rate of voter lists.
The Central Election Commission of Kosovo decided that the vote will be held on the 21st, after verifying the citizens’ signatures on the petitions for the dismissal of the mayors of the municipalities with a Serbian majority in the north of Kosovo – North Mitrovica, Leposaviq, Zveçan and Zubin Potok.
The signatures were collected in mid-January in accordance with an administrative instruction issued by the Government of Kosovo, in order to pave the way for the announcement of early elections in the northern municipalities, because the local Serbian population has not accepted the Albanian mayors. .
According to the guidelines, approved in September of last year, for this vote to be successful, 50 percent, plus one vote of citizens with the right to vote, is needed. After that, the result is sent to the president of Kosovo, Vjosa Osmani, who has a legal deadline of 30 to 45 days to announce the holding of early elections.
The Albanian presidents were elected in April 2023 in the elections which were boycotted by the Serbs as a sign of dissatisfaction with the policies of the Government of Kosovo.
The launch of their duties fueled tensions at the end of May last year which culminated in Zveçan, after Serbian protesters clashed with members of the NATO peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, KFOR.
The international community had requested the reduction of tensions and the announcement of new elections in the four municipalities in the north of Kosovo. The petition was also signed by the representatives of the Serbian List, the party that boycotted the April 2023 elections.
This party initiated the removal of Serbs from Kosovo’s institutions in November 2022 and then called for the boycott of the elections of April last year.
However, in mid-October 2023, she declared that she was ready to participate in the elections in the municipalities in the north, without setting any conditions for participation in the elections, as she had done earlier./Rel/
