Loyal Serbs to turn their back on elections

Kosovo’s elections on Saturday will throw into sharp focus the de facto partition on the ground that has yet to be addressed in negotiations over the future status of the disputed province.

Ethnic Serbs, the largest minority, will overwhelmingly boycott the voting for the 120-seat assembly in Pristina, the provisional capital of the ethnic Albanian-dominated province, UN and EU officials admit.

The main ethnic Albanian parties are resolved, whoever wins, to declare independence early next year, counting on recognition by the US and most EU members.

But the 100,000 or so Serbs in the province – like most people in Serbia proper – will still regard the territory as rightfully Serbian. Belgrade, aiming to hold on to its nominal sovereignty, has told Kosovo Serbs to boycott the Kosovo elections, as has the Serbian Orthodox Church.

Several ethnic Serb registered for the elections, but all except one have dropped out, say UN officials. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe has prepared six mobile voting stations in an effort to let Serbs vote without putting the stations in places that could be subject to intimidation by boycotters.

EU and UN officials have expressed disappointment at the political interference, which will deepen Serbs’ alienation at a time when they most need representation. Genoveva Ruiz Calavera, head of the EU Kosovo desk in Brussels, said: “We certainly regret the non-participation of the Kosovo Serb community in the forthcoming elections. The attitude of Belgrade is not in the interest of this community and Kosovo as a whole.”

Vlora Citaku, spokeswoman for the Kosovo Democratic Party, the opposition party with the lead in opinion polls, agreed that Kosovo could become a normal country faster with Serbs on board: “The sooner they realise that Pristina is their capital, the better it will be for us and them.”

Western diplomats say independence is the only way to settle the whole troubled Balkan region more than eight years after Nato aircraft pushed out the then-Yugoslav Serb forces that were terrorising and expelling ethnic Albanians.

Kosovo Albanian guerilla leaders – now among the leading politicians – expected their western allies not only to end the Serb “occupation” but to deliver clear legal independence. But many Serbs would need no encouragement from Belgrade to snub the elections, say western officials in North Mitrovica, the main Serb centre.

North of the Ibar river, roughly 50,000 Serbs are concentrated into a few municipalities along the UN-administered boundary, an area remaining Serbian in more than name. The cars have old Serbian “KM” number plates or no plates at all, rather than the “KS” issued by Pristina.

The police, though paid and uniformed by the UN-led Kosovo Police Service, are almost entirely Serbs and do not trouble over such details. (FT)