Elections Kosovo 2001
People of Kosovo will choose their representatives in the future Kosovo assembly by voting in the general elections scheduled for Nov. 17. The assembly will have 120 seats. A total of 25 parties and coalitions have registered for the elections, including a bloc of Serbian parties called the Return Coalition. However, it is still not clear whether the Serb community will take part in the upcoming elections, as their conditions have not been fulfilled. Kosovo Serbs expect the international authorities in Kosovo to give them guarantees for the safe return of those expelled from Kosovo and to reveal the fate of their abducted and missing relatives. It is not likely that the international community will be able to fulfill these requests since it cannot even guarantee them basic freedom of movement.
Kosovo elections are organized by the international community or UN's civilian mission and OSCE. The number of citizens who will have the right to vote in the elections has not been announced so far. According to some estimates, there are about 1.2 million voters. A total of 1,597 ballots have already been printed by a British printer, with an addition of 20,000 ballots for "special purposes." According to the election rules in Serbia, the number of ballots must match the number of voters in rolls, plus a ballot reserve of .5 percent.
10. The Green Party
11. The Movement for National Liberation of Kosovo
12. The New Initiative for Democratic Kosovo
13. Dzevdet Redzaj - independent candidate
14. The Democratic Party of Albanians Askalije
15. The National Movement of Kosovo
16. The Socijal-Democratic Party of Kosovo
17. The Albanian National Democratic Party
18. Ljatif Krejziu - independent candidate
19. The National Front
20. The Democratic Party of Kosovo
21. Dzun Ceta - independent candidate
22. The Return Coalition
23. The Democratic Alliance of Kosovo
24. The United Party of Kosovo Roma
25. The Civic Initiative of Kosovo
26. The Kosovo Party of Liberal Center
27. The Albanian Liberal Party
28. The Justice Party
29. The Alliance for Kosovo's Future
30. The Albanian Democratic Christian Party of Kosovo
31. The Republican Party of Kosovo
32. The Liberal Party of Kosovo
33. The Vatan party
34. The Bosnian Party of Kosovo Democratic Action
35. The Democratic Party of Kosovo Turks
Representatives of the international community in Kosovo, especially OSCE Mission Chief Daan Everts are constantly calling on Kosovo Serbs to take part in the elections, claiming that their boycott of the elections will only do them harm as they will not be able to make decisions about their future. Belgrade authorities say that the Serb participation in the elections depends on the international community's stands and behavior and that the Serb community in Kosovo would have already taken part in the election campaign if their position in Kosovo had been better.
On the other hand, political parties of Kosovo Albanians started their pre election campaign at the beginning of October.
ESTIMATES
According to recent opinion polls, the absolute favorite is the Democratic Alliance of Kosovo led by Ibrahim Rugova, who is expected to win more than 45% of votes. The other two most popular parties are the Democratic Party of Kosovo and the Alliance for Kosovo's Future, led by the former commanders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), Hasim Taci and Ramus Hajradinaj.
Results of the opinion polls and certain analyses show that the November elections will see a much smaller voter turnout than that of October 2000, when the voter turnout was around 80%. This can be explained by the fact that a majority of voters are disappointed with the events in Kosovo, which followed the October elections and by the fact that the winning Democratic Alliance of Kosovo has been prevented from coming to power held by leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army since June 1999.
The main message of the Albanian pre-election campaign is Kosovo's independence (ways and time limits set for achieving this goal are different). Representatives of the international community have so far rejected the idea of Kosovo's independence by citing UN Security Council's Resolution 1244, which regards Kosovo as part of Yugoslavia.
Public opinion polls show that Kosovo's electorate, which chiefly consists of Albanians, will largely vote for the Democratic Alliance of Kosovo, led by Ibrahim Rugova, the Democratic Party of Kosovo, headed by Hasim Taci and the Alliance for Kosovo's Future, whose leader is Ramus Hajradinaj.
Kosovo election system guarantees a minimum of 10% of the total number of seats in the assembly (120) to each minority (the Turks, the Roma, the Askalije and the Goranci). Thus, there the minorities have good prospects of winning further 25 seats in the assembly in case of huge voter turnout. If Kosovo Serbs take part in the elections, they can expect to get 24 assembly seats, at an average rate of voter turnout.
The international community in Kosovo estimates that none of the Albanian parties will be able to win a two-third majority of Albanian votes, which is why the future Kosovo assembly will be controlled by a coalition of two or more Albanian parties.
It is almost certain that Kosovo's first premier will be the former premier of the Kosovo government in exile, Bujar Bukosi. Bukosi will be appointed premier because of at least DM850million, which he has collected from Albanian immigrants in Western countries over the last ten years as a contribution for the struggle for Kosovo's independence. Bukosi is so far the only serious candidate for the position of premier, although he has not been very active in Kosovo's political life since he returned there in the autumn of 1999.
Rugova's greatest opponent will be the former KLA leader, Hasim Taci, whose pre-election campaign has become much more moderate. Flora Brovina, a defender of human rights from Pristina, holds a high position in the election ticket of Taci's Democratic Party of Kosovo. In October last year, Brovina was released from a Serbian prison, where she was held due to accusations of being connected with Albanian rebels. Brovina is the presidential candidate of Taci's party.
The party's senior official, Ram Buja, has announced that if the Democratic Party of Kosovo wins the elections, it will start an initiative for amending the Constitutional Framework for Kosovo's Temporary Local Government, which will include a referendum on the final international status of Kosovo. Ram Buja was a member of the Albanian negotiation team at Rambuillet and the minister of information in Taci's temporary government. Taci is facing great challenges within his party since his leadership has become seriously jeopardized after his total defeat in the local elections in October last year.
Former KLA commander Ramus Hajradinaj also counts on the votes of KLA supporters and has started preparing for the elections by gathering around him influential Kosovo politicians. Well-informed Kosovo sources say that the Alliance for Kosovo's Future cannot endanger the Democratic Alliance of Kosovo, although it could come rather close to the Democratic Party of Kosovo. Although a coalition between the Democratic Alliance of Kosovo and the Alliance for Kosovo's Future is at present out of the question, it could be the most natural post-election alliance, since the Democratic Alliance of Kosovo's cooperation with Taci's party or with Serb representatives seems to be completely impossible at present.
Kosovo elections are essentially an open struggle between the former KLA commanders for the second place since Rugova is sure to poll the most. According to estimates, the results of the November elections will be the same for Taci and Hajradinaj as those of October last year, when they won 25 seats or a little over seven percent of votes. Monitors in Pristina have not ruled out the possibility that Ramus Hajradini's party could show somewhat better results in the November elections, thanks to the more active role of its political counselor, Mahmut Bakali. Bakali is a former communist official and the one who has pulled the strings of Kosovo's policy over the last ten years.
Kosovo elections in Serb election districts will be monitored by some 1,200 activists of the Belgrade-based Center for Free Elections and Democracy (CeSID), while the Albanian part of monitoring the elections will be done by the Pristina-based KACI and the Council for Human Rights and Freedom, headed by the former KLA political representative and a long-term political prisoner, Adem Demaci. The elections will also be supervised by a delegation of the Council of Europe, consisting of some 200 monitors.
SERBS
If Kosovo Serbs decide to take part in the elections they could, according to UNMIK's calculations, win between 25 and 28 out of 120 seats in the future Kosovo assembly, which would make them the second strongest political power in Kosovo. Kosovo Serbs are, however, more likely to boycott the elections than to take part in them. Serbs in the central part of Kosovo practically live in ghettos. Only those who live in a huge enclave in northern Kosovo, around the divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica, enjoy full freedom, the reasons for this being that this part of Kosovo is near the border with Serbia and that no Albanians are living here.
Bowing to the demands of UNMIK and the international community, the Belgrade authorities first organized a powerful campaign to persuade as many Serbs as possible to register for Kosovo elections. A total of around 180,000 Serb voters have been registered and the Serbian side has officially registered a coalition called the Return Coalition. More radical Kosovo Serb officials are strongly opposed to Serb participation in the elections, while the Belgrade authorities cannot ask them to vote because of the extremely bad situation in which these people are living.
The Return Coalition, the only political party of Kosovo Serbs which has registered for the elections, seems to be a tactical move of the Belgrade authorities which should make it possible for Kosovo Serbs to take part in the elections through some anonymous and insignificant political agents.
Faced with a possible Serb boycott of the elections, representatives of the international community have several times criticized the Belgrade authorities, saying, as UNMIK Chief Hans Haekkerup did, that they "have not tried hard enough to make the Serbs take part in the elections." President of the Yugoslav Kosovo Coordination Center, Nebojsa Covic sharply answered that it is the international community who should provide conditions for Serb participation in the elections. The UN Security Council also supported Serb participation in the elections. After having thanked the Belgrade authorities and "President Vojislav Kostunica above all" for their support for the process of registration, the Security Council practically asked the Belgrade authorities to support the participation of Kosovo Serbs in the elections.
The Yugoslav and Serbian authorities are trying to use Covic's Kosovo Coordination Center as a means for creating basic conditions for the survival of the remaining Serbs in Kosovo. According to the latest estimates, around 130,000 Serbs are still living in Kosovo. |
