KOSOVO IN THE ELECTIONS

AIM Pristina, 13 September, 1997

The final outcome of the Serbian parliamentary and presidential elections in Kosovo seems to be decided from the very moment when the election law was prepared pursuant which at least 35 deputies from Kosovo will become members of the Serbian parliament. Before the election law was adopted and the elections scheduled, the Socialist party of Serbia (SPS) was convinced that the Albanians would again refuse to vote in Serbian elections. Abstention of the Albanians in the elections was in fact the condition for the increase of the number of deputies from Kosovo, and motives and calculations were simple and obvious: at the very start, it meant that at least 35 deputy seats in the Assembly were ensured in advance.

It is easy to derive this conclusion as a simple mathematical operation. However, it has a comparatively firm political backing. Ever since there are multi-party elections in this space, the Serbs have voted not for party programs, but for the party which is in power in Belgrade or has sure prospects to come to power. Significant presence of Seselj's and Arkan's party in previous convocations of the assembly with deputies from Kosovo, apparently denies this statement. Indeed, Seselj's and Arkan's supporters have become and been a political power in Kosovo at the time when they were the most earnest executors of orders (political and other) given by the SPS, that is the regime in Belgrade. In these periods of time, they were presented by the regime's propaganda more or less openly as natural allies in the struggle for the national cause, and the people especially in Kosovo, accepted them only as more consistent Socialists. They could make a political penetration in Kosovo only in so far as it was needed by the SPS. This statement was best confirmed at the latest republican and federal elections when Seselj's Radicals were almost completely (and Arkan's completely) wiped out as a political power in Kosovo, in the republican and the federal parliament.

Simple mathematical affecting of election results in Kosovo is possible because the absolute boycott of the Albanians deprives the voters' register of its precision and makes control of the number of those who have actually voted quite impossible. On the other hand, the SPS is the only Serbian political party with a comparatively firm local organization. It is true that its organization relies directly on the state and economic authorities, but it is a fact. The SPS holds the ballot boxes and after all, freely decides not only how many ballots there will be in these boxes, but even how many votes will be given to whom.

According to certain rough estimates, the electorate in Kosovo, the Albanians excluded, cannot amount to more than 150 thousand voters. This number does not include several ten thousand soldiers and policemen, political, state and financial administration workers and others who have been brought here in order to prove that Kosovo is Serb. There are quite a few of the latter, because many have either been brought or have come by their free will to seek easier jobs or work as experts. Along with the students and refugees they form a considerable portion of the electorate. In fact, almost all those brought to Kosovo on various grounds have the status of voters. Regardless of how it is defined by law, in circumstances prevailing in Kosovo, their franchise can become the subject of easy manipulations.

The composition and the number of voters in the Kosovo electorate should be observed from another angle as well. On the opposite extreme from the Albanian boycott are the Serbs and the Montenegrins. The Romanies are very close to this other extreme, but depending on the ethnic mixture in certain local communities, differences may appear among them concerning acceptance to participate or to boycott the elections. With the same reservations when speaking about the Romanies, one could say that "Highlander"-Muslims are also inclined towards the Serb-Montenegrin extreme. Approximately in the centre or closer to the Albanian extreme which will boycott the elections are the Muslims-Bosniacs and the Turks.

The closest to the reality is the estimate that about ten per cent will actually vote out of the electorate in Kosovo, which amounts to more than 900 thousand citizens. There are estimates that the electorate in Kosovo is even bigger by at least a couple hundred thousand adults, but at the moment this has no political significance since this difference refers mostly to the Albanian part of the electorate which is absolutely homogeneous in rejecting the Serbian elections. It is believed that, in Kosovo, 90 thousand citizens at the most exercise their franchise. This estimate is founded on the assumption that the right to vote is practised by 60 or 70 per cent of the electorate of ethnic communities which politically do not reject the elections, but also on the data on absolute figures of those who voted in some municipalities of Kosovo in the past six or seven years. But, when the latter is concerned, it is necessary to be very cautious because of possible manipulations with the consequently stuffed ballot boxes or the possibility of fixed number of those who have allegedly voted. In the last year's federal and local elections, in one or the other manner, the number of voters who have allegedly voted was increased by at least 20 odd thousand votes. It seems that manipulations in those elections were more ruthless than in earlier elections when results seem to have been adjusted by a more sophisticated computer processing.

Rival parties which are not in power and which are fighting for votes in the forthcoming elections rightfully complain about not having the possibility to control the elections in Kosovo. That is why they are criticizing the SPS. But, it has not occurred to any of them that they share the responsibility for such a situation. In fact they complain that they too cannot participate in distribution of the easily ensured deputy seats from Kosovo. Not a single one criticizes the causes which have brought about this situation in Kosovo. In this respect, not only have they failed to criticize or as before heavily accuse the ruling party, but this time maximum agreement among the main political competitors has been expressed.

Although aware that in Kosovo they can get only as many votes as the SPS is ready to let them have, presidential candidates Vuk Draskovic and Vojislav Seselj came to Pristina to present themselves as best they could in view of the monopoly of the SPS over the media to the Kosovo electorate. Draskovic even had a 90-minute long interview on local television. Although officially invited, Seselj's interview was cancelled. In comparison with Seselj, Draskovic was given preference, or rather was less discriminated, which may but not necessarily be a foretaste of an agreement about sharing seats in the parliament.

Harsh words that all the three political rivals are addressing to the Albanians do not belong to the usual forced and sharp pre-election rhetoric. In fact, everything said is implemented in practice for years or at least attempted. Advocating unitarian Serbia, all the three rivals would gladly abolish even the current, as they call it, false autonomy prescribed by the Serbian Constitution. Draskovic would change the name of Kosovo into Old Serbia the day after winning power. Seselj and Lilic would expel across the border a few hundred thousand Albanians, allegedly foreign citizens and those who are not in favour of unitarian Serbia, with the king or without him.

If any of Kosovo municipalities should still have Albanian majority population, all three would implement, as Kosovo Albanians define it, the discriminatory law on two-chamber assemblies in the system of so-called local self-administration. In case of paralysis of the process of decision-making, which is quite inevitable in Kosovo conditions, this law transfers the local power to the centre in Belgrade.

"Duke" Seselj threatened those who are disloyal with the instruments of the so-called legal state. However, there was no need for that, because measures and means of that legal state have been applied in Kosovo by the SPS for years now. He says that the only way to neutralize domination of Kosovo by the Albanians, if they should decide to participate in some future elections, is to proclaim a single electoral district - Serbia. And the local SPS leader, Vojislav Zivkovic, boasts in the election campaign with the arrested Albanians and promises his voters new arrests in the following days. A part of the promises were fulfilled a few days ago by the police when it started an investigation against a group of 15 Albanians from Djakovica because they had allegedly, in 1990 or 1991, become members of the Albanian National Front which had planned secession of Kosovo from Serbia, that is Yugoslavia. He also openly promises abolishment of any form of autonomy, because "this is Serbia"...

The Albanians are following these elections convinced more than ever that for them it will be more or less the same under the rule of any of those who are competing for votes of the Serb voters in these elections. The awareness is increasing almost daily among them that they must do something for themselves, regardless of who will be in power in Belgrade from now on.

AIM Pristina

Fehim Rexhepi