North Kosovo Vote to Dismiss Mayors Risks Failure Amid Boycott

On Sunday, residents of four Serb-majority municipalities in northern Kosovo may vote to dismiss their disputed mayors – but with Serbian parties calling for a boycott it is hard to see the vote succeeding.

Kosovo authorities set up container which will serve as polling station for April 23 local elections in Mitrovica North on April 20, 2023. Photo: BIRN/Adelina Ahmeti

More than 46,500 voters have been called to cast ballots on Sunday in four Serb-majority municipalities in the north of Kosovo. In an unprecedented process, they will not vote to elect mayors but to dismiss them.

This is the first time Kosovo has organised this type of ballot in which voters can exercise their right to dismiss the mayors of Leposavic, North Mitrovica, Zvecan and Zubin Potok that they never considered as legitimate.

But on Wednesday, the Central Election Commission, CEC, announced that 33 school premises in the four municipalities will not serve as polling stations because their directors refuse to allow the votes to be held there.

Schools in Serb-populated areas in Kosovo function under the umbrella of the Serbian “parallel system” and calls for a boycott made by the Belgrade-backed party Srpska Lista last week were echoed by the school principals.

Burim Ahmetaj, CEC Secretary, said only ten schools in the four municipalities are accessible to the CEC to distribute voting material.

“The justifications of the school directors were that on April 21 they’d planned other activities on school premises,” Ahmetaj said.

“After the representatives from Srpska Lista resigned from the Municipal Election Commissions on April 6, we could not communicate with these directors. They have refused [to communicate],” he added.

The scheduled vote on the dismissal of the four mayors was put into question early this month after Srpska Lista representatives submitted their resignations to the CEC.

“We received resignations from the four members of Municipal Election Commissions who were appointed as representatives of Srpska Lista,” Valmir Elezi, CEC Spokesperson, told BIRN.

The resignations came only days after the CEC set up municipal commissions in the four municipalities, appointing four officials to head them. It also appointed 27 members representing parliamentary parties.

Srpska Lista announced that it would boycott the vote to dismiss the mayors less than three months after it organised mass collections of signatures to make the dismissal vote possible.

The party blamed Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s alleged wish for the vote to fail.

“The position of Srpska Lista is to not participate in the referendum called by Albin Kurti because he has done everything for the vote to fail,” Zlatan Elek told the media.

The four municipalities ended up with ethnic Albanian mayors after Serbs boycotted the local elections in April 2023.

As a result, North Mitrovica, Zvecan, Leposavic and Zubin Potok saw mayors from ethnic Albanian parties elected to office on tiny turnouts of only 3 to 5 per cent.

On January 17, hundreds of residents in the four municipalities signed petitions to dismiss the mayors elected by handfuls of votes. After reviewing the signatures, the CEC announced their validity for the four municipalities and announced a date for a dismissal vote.

For a mayor to be dismissed, 50 per cent of the overall number of voters need to vote in favour, plus one. Otherwise, a repeat initiative can only be made one year later.