THE SAME OLD STORY

Beograd May 23, 1997

All Serbian and Albanian "Elections" in Kosovo

AIM Belgrade, 17 May, 1997

The problem of Kosovo surfaces in each pre-election year in Serbia or FRY. And each time the same scenario is repeated: the international community appeals to the ones and the others to reach a compromise through the elections; the Kosovo Albanians repeat in unison the refrain about boycott and their own elections; the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) calls the Albanians to practise their rights warranted by the Constitution, but in fact does not wish them to do it in order to ensure more mandates for itself; the Serbian (democratic) opposition appeals to the Albanians to vote and prevent the SPS from winning all the mandates from Kosovo, and promises that it will consequently resolve the status of Kosovo in a democratic manner; the Radicals repeat that it is "better even to have all the mandates taken by the Socialists than by the Squiptars", and by the way collect a mandate or two for themselves... And after the elections, everything goes back to the same old story.

According to the instructions of the political leadership, Kosovo Albanians have so far boycotted all the elections in Serbia and the FRY, on all levels. Instead of running in the first multiparty elections, between 26 and 30 September 1991, they voted at the referendum for "sovereign and independent state of Kosovo", organized by the "Albanian Alternative" organization, in which 87 per cent of those who responded voted in favour. In mid 1992 (on 24 May), under strong police control, the Albanians voted in "semi-secret elections" for 130 seats in the assembly (that is, 144 with the directly elected ones) and the president of the republic, in which the Democratic Alliance of Kosovo (DSK) and its leader Ibrahim Rugova, with plebiscitary support (762,257 votes won, or 99.7 per cent) achieved "full success".

At the time, the information centre of the DSK made it public that 89.32 per cent of the electorate actually voted, that is 762.267 out of the total of 853,432 registered voters (according to the official 1992 evaluation, the Albanians form 11.8 per cent of the electorate of Serbia or 829,663 out of the total of 7,028,302 registered voters). There were 511 candidates from 22 parties running in the elections. The Democratic Alliance of Kosovo won 96 seats (76.44 per cent), the Parliamentary Party of Kosovo 14 (4.86 per cent of the votes), the Peasants' Party of Kosovo 7 (3.29), the Albanian Christian Democratic Party 7 (3.15) and independent candidates won two seats in direct elections. According to the percentage of the population and proportionate distribution of the Muslims (Party of Democratic Action-SDA) were "allocated" three seats and won one in direct voting (in a coalition with the DSK), while 14 seats remained empty which should, according to the percentage of the population and proportionate distribution, belong to the Serbs and the Montenegrins. distribution

With these elections, the Albanians leaders made it clear to the authorities in Serbia and the international community that they were not interested in any form of autonomy, nor constitution of the new assembly of the autonomy, but that they were in favour of constitution of their own administration which would pave the way for leaving Serbia and FR Yugoslavia.

However, the Kosovo parliament elected in these elections has not been constituted to this day, so that in the formal sense, there is no such thing as the Albanian parliamentary authorities and the opposition. It is also difficult to speak about the existence of the authorities and the opposition in conditions of emergency measures in Kosovo and denial of loyalty to Serbia and FR Yugoslavia by the Albanians. Not even within the Albanian ethnic movement the main issue of which is the status of Kosovo, is there true opposition; one could rather say that there are different "variants of the national program". The DSK as the leading political party has no characteristics of a modern party of the western type having a definite program, but rather of a national movement, or an institution which at the same time performs the task of a coordinator of different social groups and parties and plays the role of a political party. Parties which participated in the Albanian "semi-secret elections" in 1992 abided by the rule that preservation of national solidarity was more important than construction of an operational democratic political structure. In this way public conflicts between different parties were avoided.

One of the essential characteristics of the parallel political scene in Kosovo is also the fact that respectable personages often play a more powerful role in public and the political life than parties, which is illustrated, apart from Ibrahim Rugova, by examples of influential "non-parliamentary" personages such as Qosja, Demaqi, Vlasi, Bakali, or Suroi and Maliqi.

After the civil war had broken out on the territory of former Yugoslavia, internationalization of the "problem of Kosovo", one of the main foundations of the policy of the "Albanian alternative" gathered momentum. "Serbian repression", that is threatened human rights and freedoms, were the basic, highly successful means for achieving internationalization. In such circumstances, in December 1992 elections, coming to power of the opposition block headed by prime minister Panic, who enjoyed open support of the West, instead of Milosevic's regime was not in the interest of the Albanian party leaders. Remaining in power of a regime with a bad image in the West suited the leaders of Kosovo Albanians, because it was a pretext for them to continue to avoid talks about autonomy within Serbia.

The result of the Albanian boycott of 1992 republican elections was a large number of seats for non-Albanian parties won with a comparatively small number of votes. For example, the Socialist Party fo Serbia, in Pristina electoral unit, won 13 seats in the parliament with only 42,396 votes, the Serb Radical Party (SRS), in a silent coalition with the SPS at the time, with just 18,735 votes won five seats, exactly like the "independent candidate" Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan with 17,352 votes, while the Democratic Reform Party of the Muslims (DRSM) won 6,336 votes and one seat.

The boycott of early republican elections in December 1993 by the "Albanian alternative" was even more favourable for the ruling SPS, because it won 21 out of 24 mandates in Kosovo and Metohija (two were won by the Serb Radical Party and one by DEPOS). In these elections, the Coalition of the Party for Democratic Operation (PDD) and the Democratic Party of the Albanians (DPA) with 29,342 votes won two seats in the assembly of Serbia. Participation of this coalition in the elections did not in any way break the unison of the boycott by the Albanian parties, because it competed in municipalities in the south of Serbia which were not part of Kosovo and Metohija. In fact, by participation in the elections and entering the Serbian assembly, this coalition followed the choice of the Albanians from the south of Serbia and Montenegro to move towards their political aim in this region

creation of political and territorial autonomy, in other words local administration - through institutions of the system. In 1992 elections, these two parties participated independently and failed to win any mandate, while in the first multi-party elections for the assembly of Serbia in 1990, the PDD won one deputy seat.

In federal elections in 1996, out of 13 mandates for the Chamber of Citizens from Kosovo, the ruling party won 12, and the SRS one. It should be noted, that even the coalition partner of the ruling party, the Yugoslav United Left (JUL), lodged complaints concerning regularity of the federal and local elections in Kosovo. According to the official data, 75,000 more citizens voted in these elections than in the previous, republican ones. The demand of Zoran Lucic, member of the Federal Electoral Commission, to determine ethnic composition of the voters, was rejected by this commission.

In view of the presented data, it becomes quite clear why the ruling party will not make any effort to include Kosovo Albanians in the forthcoming elections either.

Controversies among the Albanian parties in Kosovo exist only concerning the manner and time when parallel elections should be scheduled, and not whether they should participate in the "Serb" elections. As it leaked from the meeting of the Coordinating Committee, two options were in the game: Rugova's who was allegedly in favour of the elections but without previous constitution of the parliament, and Demaqi's who was in favour of constitution of the parliament which would temporarily prolong the mandate of the members of the parliament and Rugova, and elect a vice-president, and then this parliament would prepare and schedule new elections. As carried by a Belgrade daily newspaper, in Vucitrn, Demaqi declared that the struggle among the Albanian political parties in Kosovo was in fact the "struggle for three per cent". The Albanian parties in Kosovo receive money collected through the "parallel" tax paid by their compatriots in respect to the number of seats won in the previous elections, so that the Parliamentary Party of Kosovo with its 14 deputy seats won in the elections receives 900 German marks, while the DSK of Ibrahim Rugova receives on this basis 70 thousand marks a month. This means, that apart from the "sublime" motives, there are also the others, quite "down-to-earth" ones.

Kosovo Albanians are announcing boycott of the "Serb" elections again, and organization of their "own", despite advices and warnings from abroad, but nevertheless strive to avoid scheduling them at the time of the election campaign in Serbia, in order to avoid the possibility of an intense operation of the ruling party as part of the "patriotic campaign". After the meeting of the Coordinating Committee of political parties of Kosovo Albanians which had won mandates in the "parallel parliament" in 1992, leader of the DSK Ibrahim Rugova announced that "Kosovo" elections would take place on 24 December this year. By then, "Serb" elections will be over and relation of forces on the Serbian political scene will crystallize, which is in favour of Rugova's DSK. And, after all, the three per cent are not negligible either...

Zoran Lutovac (AIM)