Are the elections for new mayors in the north becoming more distant and why?

The question arises: Is it necessary to adopt a Referendum Law for the dismissal of mayors in the four municipalities with a Serb majority in the north, at a time when citizens have already collected signatures for a petition for their removal? According to the assessment of Kosovo Online interlocutors, this serves to delay their removal and prolong the election of legitimate representatives of the Serbs in northern Kosovo.

Although the European Union and US representatives called for new elections in the north "as soon as possible" last summer, it is not inconceivable that Albanian mayors, elected in April 2023 with a hundred or just a few hundred votes, mark the anniversary of their mandates in these positions.

Citizens in the municipalities of North Mitrovica, Zvecan, Leposavic, and Zubin Potok have collected signatures as a part of a petition to dismiss mayors according to the Administrative Instruction of the Ministry of Local Government from September of last year. The signatures have been submitted to the Central Election Commission, which needs to determine whether a minimum of 20 percent of registered voters in these municipalities has been collected, and this assessment by the CEC is currently awaited.

If it is positive, the next step would be to organize voting (local referendums) to dismiss mayors. However, amid this process, there are increasing opinions that there is no legal basis for such an action because Kosovo does not have a Referendum Law.

Professor of the Faculty of Law at the University of Pristina with a temporary seat in Kosovska Mitrovica, Dusko Celic, believes that the dilemma regarding the need to adopt a Referendum Law for the mayors in the four municipalities in the north to be dismissed has been imposed to delay their removal. He warns that the ultimate goal of Pristina is for Albanian mayors in the north to complete their full term and be a part of its quasi-institutional pressure, making life unbearable for the Serbs locally.

"I am convinced that Albanian mayors in the municipalities in northern Kosovo and Metohija did not come there for a week or two, a month, two, or three, but that they came to complete their mandate, as they were told from Pristina. That is why all of this, so to speak, soap opera, the saga about their dismissal and the adoption of the Administrative Instruction, serves. Now the question arises whether this is not a sufficient quasi-legal framework for their dismissal, so the question of the Referendum Law is raised and so on," Celic said for Kosovo Online.

He explains that the entire story, initially about the Administrative Instruction, was entirely unnecessary because Kosovo regulations within the Law on Local Self-Government contain a norm for what is necessary for dismissal, namely that 20 percent of registered voters need to vote for the initiative. He adds that citizens of Serbian nationality submitted an initiative with a sufficient number of votes, and the procedure is then automatically handed over to the election administration, which should organize some form of citizen consultation for dismissal.

He recalled that two weeks ago, the question of the constitutionality of the Administrative Instruction had been raised, noting that the whole situation "would be funny if it weren't so sad".

"The essence is, I am convinced of this, that these installed municipalities with a minor Albanian majority, therefore without any legitimacy of those mayors with the support of two to three percent of voters, want to fulfill a full term and be a part of that quasi-institutional pressure from Pristina that will further make life unbearable for the Serbs, who are the majority on this territory," Celic says.

He assesses that all measures taken since the beginning of the term of Albanian mayors in the four municipalities in northern Kosovo have been detrimental to the Serbs.

“From the illegal construction of roads, plowing of cemeteries without expropriation, without determining the public interest, allocation of land for police bases... All these measures were calculated to further exert pressure on the Serbian population, rather than the local community serving the citizens, which is a fundamental thing everywhere in the world. Obviously, this is not the case in northern Kosovo," Celic concludes.

All processes related to the petition for the dismissal of mayors, and now the initiation of the issue of the Referendum Law, are designed, according to Stefan Surlic, an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade, to prolong the election of legitimate representatives of the Serbs in northern Kosovo.

He assesses that by considering the adoption of the Referendum Law, Pristina is "buying time" and postponing the issue of local elections in the north until after the extraordinary parliamentary elections in Kosovo.

"The entire process with petitions and referendums is designed to prolong the ultimate goal, which is a legitimate election of Serb representatives in northern Kosovo. This is just buying time," Surlic said for Kosovo Online.

He explains that conducting a referendum on the removal of mayors in the north leads to a paradoxical situation - that more than 50% of registered voters should express support for the removal of mayors who received three to four percent support from voters.

Surlic says that if we were really to go to the final stage and demand that citizens express their opinion on the removal of mayors in a referendum, there would definitely have to be some legal framework, but, as he assesses, there are other solutions to resolve the situation.

"Let's not forget, if there is a clear political will, a solution can easily be found, namely that this agony ends with the simple resignations of mayors because it is evident that this whole process is, in fact, aimed at rendering any idea of a quick and efficient return of the Serbs to institutions meaningless and buying time until early parliamentary elections," Surlic concluded.

And Bojana Selakovic, the Coordinator of the National Convention on the EU, assesses that this is an attempt by Pristina to postpone local elections and, by buying time, turn the situation in its favor at a time when the attention of the international community is not focused on Kosovo and Serbia.

Selakovic points out that it is up to Belgrade to have a prepared response to everything that can happen.

"There is a certain consistent approach of Pristina when it comes to the whole dialogue process. This would not be the first time they are buying time to wait for some steps and situations that depend on the current relationship on the geopolitical scene," Selakovic said for Kosovo Online.

She believes that the adoption of the Referendum Law cannot be quickly realized, and therefore the electoral process in the north.

"That certainly cannot happen quickly, no matter what the legal option is, and it will definitely happen in a vacuum where the attention of the international community will not be focused on Kosovo and Serbia. So, we can probably talk about it somewhere in the fall or maybe a little later, and until then, there will be a status quo situation, which has actually proven to be most suitable for the actors leading the dialogue because if there is a status quo, there is some stability," Selakovic warned.

She adds that it should not be forgotten that parliamentary elections are expected in Kosovo in the coming period during the summer, so until then, the trend of using relations between Pristina and Kosovo Serbs for internal purposes is expected to continue.

Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Pristina, Mazllum Baraliu, however, says Kosovo Online that the Referendum Law is not necessary for the citizens to express their opinion on the dismissal of mayors in the four municipalities in northern Kosovo.

As he points out, this is why the Administrative Instruction was adopted by the Ministry of Local Government, which, as he said, allowed citizens to dismiss mayors through the procedure it envisaged. What will follow in the north, according to Baraliu, is voting according to Article 72 of the Law on Local Self-Government, which provides one of the possible ways to dismiss the president of any municipality.

"Through requests, not petitions or referendums, it is said, requests, with Administrative Instructions. It has been forwarded to the Central Election Commission, where the signatures are checked according to the law and the Administrative Instruction, 20 percent of the electorate, and, of course, there will be a vote, and that vote should be completed with 50 percent plus one vote," Baraliu said.

He says that after this vote, the process of declaring elections follows. The legal deadline is at least 30 days and at most 45, and within that period, early elections should be held.

"And then we get what the people choose," Baraliu says.

Unlike Baraliu, the Executive Director of the European Centre for Minority Issues in Kosovo, Adrian Zeqiri, stated that he was afraid the process of holding new elections in the four municipalities with a Serb majority in the north would encounter legal obstacles. He emphasized that the Constitution dictated that referendums be organized based on a special law, and the Assembly had never decided on such a law. Recently, the Chairman of the Assembly of the Municipality of North Mitrovica, Nexhat Uglanin, stated that there was no legal framework for a referendum and that "CEC will certainly submit the Referendum Law to the Kosovo Assembly for voting, which will then be signed by the President of Kosovo".

The CEC, for now, has not commented on this possibility.

Speaking generally about the Referendum Law, Baraliu says that Kosovo does not have it because for years there was no political will from the international community to assist Kosovo in creating an administration. However, he adds that there was also no political will from political parties, both former and current, to do something like that.