Referendum “for“ or “against“ the removal from office of the ethnic Albanian mayors will take place today in the four northern Kosovo municipalities of Zvechan, Zubin Potok, Leposavich and Severna Mitrovica, populated mainly by Serbs, the Kosovo media reported, quoted by BTA.
The polling stations will open at 7:00 a.m. local time (8:00 a.m. Bulgarian time) and close at 7:00 p.m. (8:00 p.m. Bulgarian time).
The referendum was reached after the local elections in Kosovo on April 23 last year, the Kosovo Serbs in the four municipalities in which they are the majority, boycotted the vote and the voter turnout was 3.5 percent. As a result, Kosovo Albanians were elected mayors of these municipalities, which caused tension both locally and between Belgrade and Pristina.
Serbia and the Kosovo Serbs do not recognize the independence of Kosovo declared in 2008. The two countries are conducting a dialogue to normalize their relations under the auspices of the EU.
After rising tensions in northern Kosovo with the inauguration of new mayors and constant demands by the international factor to hold new elections there, the government of Kosovo presented in September last year an administrative instruction that allows the citizens of Kosovo to request the removal of municipal mayors from office through a petition, Radio Free Europe recalls.
The path to today's referendum in northern Kosovo was paved by petitions supported, according to the administrative instruction, by 20 percent of those eligible to vote in each of the four municipalities.
The citizens' vote today will decide whether the current municipal mayors of Zvecan (Ilir Peci of the opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo), Zubin Potak (Izmir Zechiri of the Democratic Party of Kosovo), Leposavich (Lulzim Hetemi of the ruling Movement “Self-Determination” ) and Severna Mitrovica (Erden Atich from the “Self-Determination“ Movement) will remain in office or not.
If their release is voted in the referendum, which requires 50 percent plus one vote of those entitled to vote, new local elections will be organized.
At the beginning of April, two parties of the Kosovo Serbs – "Serbian List" and the "Party of the Kosovo Serbs" announced that they would not take part in the vote to remove the mayors of the four municipalities in northern Kosovo, claiming that their position was shared by the Serbs in the area.
Newspaper “Koha ditore“ recalls that the call of “Srabska lista“ for a boycott of the referendum on April 21 comes despite the fact that the party has supported the petitions, giving the green light to the process of removing the current mayors of the municipalities.
After the position of “Serbska lista“ the Kosovo government called on the party not to spread misinformation and not to put pressure on the citizens of the Serbian community in Kosovo who want to participate in the democratic process on April 21.
Representatives of the so-called Five (USA, Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany) and the EU in Kosovo also called on Serbian parties to participate in the referendum on April 21.
As a result of the position of the Kosovo Serb parties, four representatives of “Serbian List” in the four northern municipalities and one of the civil initiative "Freedom, Justice and Survival" (GI SPO) in the municipality of Severna Mitrovica submitted their resignations from the municipal election commissions for the referendum. The municipal election commissions deal with the settlement of the elections on the territory of a given municipality under the exclusive leadership and instructions of the Central Election Commission. The two political parties did not present their new representatives for the municipal election commissions, which had to be done by the afternoon of April 11 at the latest.
On April 12, the CEC received messages from an unknown sender that schools in Northern Kosovo will not be able to be used as polling stations for the April 21 referendum. According to information of “Koha ditore“ of all the schools in the four northern municipalities for electoral divisions today only six will serve.
Schools in northern Kosovo are controlled by structures operating under the Serbian system (so-called parallel structures), which Kosovo considers illegal. The use of schools as polling places was not allowed for the first time in the partial early elections in Zvečan, Zubin Potok, Leposavic and Severna Mitrovica on 23 April last year. Special containers were then used for voting.
For today's referendum, however, containers will not be used, and voting will take place in public spaces, halls and other premises owned by the Kosovo Privatization Agency (AKP), notes “Koha Ditore”.
The total number of polling stations in Northern Kosovo is 23 – five each in Zvechan, Zubin stream and Severna Mitrovica and eight in Leposavich.
For the first time during today's voting, video surveillance cameras will be installed in the polling stations. The CEC emphasized on its official website that this decision does not only affect the referendum on April 21, but will also apply to all future election processes. The CEC added that the purpose of installing cameras is to ensure the security of election materials and preserve the transparency of the voting process and vote counting in the polling stations.