Final Results and Dilemmas

AIM Pristina, November 11, 2000

Ten days after the local elections in Kosovo, OUN administrator Bernard Kouchner put his signature on the final document with which election results are “blessed” or they have been issued an official “certificate”. The ceremony of their ratification began with one-hour delay while the peace forces of KFOR evacuated the whole building of OUN Mission due to a “threat that a bomb had been planted”.

The alarm proved to be false, but its shadow seemed to have been a wish to remind the international authorities that “implementation of the election results would not be an easy matter”. Perhaps that is the reason why the head of the civilian mission Bernard Kouchner hurried to state his conviction that he did “not expect unrest during the transfer of local power”, adding that the peace forces and the police were ready to overcome any problem and that all measures had been taken for that purpose It seems that these measures included the extraordinary evaluations of international officials on the course of the elections. These evaluations seem to have also blunted the “wish” of the political forces which had lost in the elections to take any steps in order to question them. Indeed, such assessments seem to have even blunted the wish of the winners to “celebrate the victory”. Neither the ones nor the others “risked” provoking “content” of their voters who had already been reassured by statements of international “friends” that in fact this was a victory of Kosovo itself

The highest international representatives have warned that these elections should be evaluated in their context. “A year and a half after the war, in a society without any institutions, without a valid census, with no tradition of open and transparent elections”, said Dan Everts, head of OSCE mission which had organised these elections. While listing a long series of characteristics, he stated that “on October 28 it was evident that three fundamental criteria for free elections were met: impossibility to steal votes, the elections passed without violence, and high turnout”. He also said that only 3.6 per cent of the votes were invalid and that this percentage was very low for the first post-conflict voting. Generally speaking, for Ambassador Everts, the elections were fully in conformity with international standards.

According to OSCE, in local elections that took place on October 28, 79 per cent of the total number of registered voters appeared at the polls. This was estimated as an extraordinary success in comparison with countries of western democracy. The greatest number of votes (58 per cent) was won by the Democratic League of Kosovo (DSK) of moderate Kosovo Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova; the Democratic Party of former political leader of Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) Hashim Thaci won 27.3 per cent of the votes; the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo of Ramush Haradinaj (former KLA commander for western Kosovo) 7.7 and the Albanian Christian Democratic Party of Kosovo of Mark Krasniqi (longtime Rugova's ally) won 1.4 per cent of the votes of the citizens. All the other political forces, the citizens' initiatives and independent candidates won less than one per cent of the votes. Based on final results, the winning party will have 504 seats in municipal assemblies, the Democratic Party 267, the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo 71 and the Albanian Christian Democraatic Party won eight seats, and a few other, mostly minority parties, won four or less seats.

The officials said that the fact that the proportional representation had been applied in these elections was very important, because this prevented establishing of single-party municipal assemblies which would have been possible by application of the majority system.

In any case, 27 municipalities in Kosovo have already got their councilmen who should take over power from the joint administration established by OUN Mission. On the other hand, in three northern municipalities of Kosovo municipal authorities will be appointed by political nomination. This system will also be applied in other zones inhabited by the Serbs, because they have boycotted the elections. The representatives of the Serbs who will be nominated by Kouchner were not present at the constitution of municipal assemblies because of the ongoing polemic between the representatives in the Serb Ethnic Council for Mitrovica and those in Gracanica. The former do not agree that Serb representatives should be nominated, while the latter have agreed about it with Kouchner. The former advocate organisation of elections in Serb enclaves and constitution of two municipalities assemblies for example in Mitrovica, the Serb and the Albanian, which is opposed by Kosovo Albanians. Consultations continue and their outcome will be known in a few days.

On the other hand, not exactly everybody is satisfied with the results of these elections for local authorities in Kosovo. After publication of preliminary results, it was clear that the elections were won by DSK. This certainly has not stirred “enthusiasm” among political parties which are called in the local press “the war faction”, the members of which are the former leaders of KLA. A graffito written on the pavement downtown Pristina probably by a discontented former combatant says: “Pristina, my heart, the blood of my brother befell you. 2000 elections, a disgrace”. In fact, some said that it was a “just” revolt of those who had fought “for the freedom of Kosovo”, and that the Kosovars voted for those who had “sabotaged the war”. In order to provide arguments in favour of their words, they hurried to remind of the meetings between Rugova and Milosevic, Rugova's statements that he did not know what KLA was and that it had been created by Serbian secret services. Rugova's followers, on the other hand, say that the authors of this graffito are those who “aimed at executing power on the basis of 'revolutionary law'” which is characteristic for the totalitarian systems of south-eastern Europe. It seems that such an explanation was aimed at reminding the people of the political past of some of the leaders of former KLA who were active in illegal organisations close to the left forces.

Nevertheless, the language used in these discussions has not sharpened to the extent to threaten with stirring up emotions or even unrest. Political parties immediately recognised the results of the elections, with the ironic ones claiming that they had no choice because they were obliged to do it when they had signed the joint declaration in the presence of American Ambassador in the OUN Richard Holbrooke. They stated that they would “cooperate in creation of new authorities and that they would begin preparations for general elections”. And yet almost the entire public concentrated on analysing the reasons for the victory of DSK and explaining the thesis that the losers were the forces which had arisen from the former KLA.

It still is not clear whether it was an effort to comfort their followers, but the parties of former combatants claimed that together they had won about 40 per cent of the votes and that this was not little. Immediately after the elections they hurried to make up the balance of their political work reminding that “many of these parties are not older than six months and that the process of transformation of former KLA was a difficult process that took up a lot of time and energy”. According to them, the Democratic League of Kosovo had nothing else to do but prepare for the elections. The latter, on the other hand, although more restrained (being the winners they had no reason to raise much noise) claimed that the new parties had paid the “price” of their mistakes. Numerous illegal activities after the war were linked to the names of former members of KLA and this had certainly influenced the voters who chose a “milder” and less “arrogant” force

The analysts say that the Albanians, like other nations in the region, are characterised by a high degree of conservatism and that it is hard for them to accept changes. “Weren't the Serbs the ones who kept Milosevic in power for 13 long years, and the Croats, Bosniacs, Kosovo is not on Mars”, they liked to say.

Others reply that this is a completely wrong comparison, because it is generally known and it must not be forgotten that Rugova is neither Milosevic nor Tudjman, nor can he be compared with them.

AIM Pristina

Arbnora BERISHA