Serbs in north Kosovo boycott local elections

In another indicator that the Kosovo-Serbia peace accord struck last month is failing, Serbs in northern Kosovo boycotted local elections on Sunday to demand more autonomy.

On Friday, Serbian List, the major political party in northern Kosovo, urged Serbs not to vote on Sunday.

“Except in some rare and very few cases, Serbs are boycotting the elections,” an unnamed central electoral commission official told Reuters on Sunday.

Serbia and Kosovo Serbs want an association of Kosovo Serb municipalities before voting, in accordance with a decade-old EU-brokered arrangement with Pristina.

The central election commission abandoned plans to put voting booths in schools and instead set up mobile huts at 13 locations, while NATO troops from Latvia and Italy, part of a more than 3,000-strong peacekeeping force in Kosovo, patrolled voting areas.

In Serb-dominated Zubin Potok, election authorities were ready for voters.

“Whether anyone will vote or not we have to keep the doors open,” an unidentified Zubin Potok electoral commission official told Reuters.

After 500 Serb police officers, administrative staff, and judges resigned last November in protest of the Kosovo government’s plan to replace Serbian car license plates with Kosovo ones, Albanian police from other regions guarded the voting huts.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, following NATO’s 1998-99 intervention to safeguard the ethnic Albanian majority, but Serbia has not recognized independence and Kosovo’s Serbs consider Belgrade their capital.

50,000 Serbs live in northern Kosovo. On March 18, Pristina and Belgrade verbally agreed to adopt a Western-backed plan to improve relations and defuse tensions in northern Kosovo by giving local Serbs more autonomy and Pristina ultimate sovereignty. Serbs claim the accord hasn’t produced results.

Forced democracy? “No,” replied North Mitrovica Serbian Jovan Knezevic. He stated Serbians should have been consulted before local elections. “There has to be a compromise, an agreement,” he remarked.

Albanians are a minority in the north but over 90% in Kosovo.

After a Serb withdrew, only one of Sunday’s 10 contenders was Serb.

Kosovo’s elected prime minister Albin Kurti said Belgrade was bullying northern Serbs not to vote on Tuesday.

Last week, the EU and US expressed dismay that Serbs had boycotted the polls.