A hot autumn in the north: Kurti announces local elections, and his mayors will not back down

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti promised in front of regional leaders and European Union officials at the Bled Forum that new local elections would be held in the autumn in four municipalities in the north of Kosovo, which is a part of the EU's demand for de-escalation of tensions, however, those familiar with the events believe that Kurti's the plan with the petition to remove the mayors is practically unfeasible, and looks more like buying time and trying to get the EU to lift the punitive measures.

Instead of the Albanian mayors resigning, which is seen as the best and fastest solution not only in Belgrade and the north but also by the majority of political actors in Pristina, the Government headed by Kurti insists that new elections be held through a petition that at least 20 percent of voters from the north would demand a vote on the removal of the municipal presidents. A working group was even organized that drafted an administrative instruction for the petition for the removal of the mayors, which has not been abandoned, even though this document has been the target of fierce criticism for days by both Serbian and Albanian legal experts and representatives of civil society in Kosovo, who evaluate the instruction as illegal and unenforceable and call for the resignation of the mayors.

However, as things stand now, they are too small for that, at least when it comes to the mayors from the ranks of Kurti's "Self-Determination" - Erden Atiq in North Mitrovica and Lulzim Hetemi in Leposavic. Moreover, Atiq said that he "does not see resigning from that position as an option, even if the petition for the removal of mayors in four municipalities in the north fails."

As Milica Andric Rakic from the NGO says for Kosovo Online, the new social initiative of elections in the north of Kosovo will not take place this year, regardless of Kurti's recent statements that they will take place in the fall.

"If there was a willingness to do so, the mayors would resign. Two mayors from the Democratic Party of Kosovo, in Zvecan and Zubin Potok, have very explicitly said that they were not only ready to resign but that they preferred that method of removal, and that they did not want a petition. On the other hand, the mayors of Self-Determination, in Leposavic and North Mitrovica, do not want to resign. As long as Lulzim Hetemi is in the municipal building in Leposavic, where he has been sleeping for more than three months, there can be no talk of any change in the position of 'Self-Determination' ' about the fact that they should leave their positions," she states.

When it comes to the administrative instructions for the petition for the removal of the mayors, Andric Rakic points out that it is not only incomplete and does not provide an answer to the second step, which is a local referendum that would vote on the removal, but also illegal.

"Numerous experts have already declared that that instruction is illegal and that it goes beyond the framework defined by the law in connection with that procedure. The question is whether that instruction will enter into force by October 1, after which we would have 30 days if an actor is found who wants to collect signatures to organize it. We don't even have an answer to the question of what happens if somewhere within that period it is not possible to collect a sufficient number of signatures, does that mean that the procedure of replacing, say, only three mayors will continue, and not all four. There are too many unknowns and areas where that process can be blocked, for me to believe that it will be successful. I do not believe at all in the possibility of replacing the mayors and new elections through a petition," she states.

She adds that she does not believe that the mayors from the ranks of Self-Determination made the decision not to resign on their own initiative, but that such a directive came from the party leadership.

"It is unlikely that the mayors themselves decided not to leave their positions, especially when it comes to Hetemi, who constantly resides in the municipal building. I doubt that anyone in the world considers it a rational decision to reside in a building non-stop. I suspect that any decision on resignations should be made in coordination with the head of the party, i.e. Kurti. Well, no one can prevent the mayors from resigning if they want to. I think they simply see this as a kind of sacrifice for the party's interest," Andric Rakic says.

When asked what kind of message Kurti was sending by promising elections, and on the other hand doing everything to prevent them from happening, our interlocutor pointed out that the entire procedure with the petition had been designed in the hope that the EU would consider that process to be sufficient to lift the punitive measures which had been introduced by Kosovo because it did not de-escalate the situation in the north.

"EU officials have clearly stated that they did not consider this to be sufficient, especially regarding the steps that Kosovo should implement, which had been agreed in Bratislava between the head of the negotiating team, Besnik Bislimi, and the European Envoy for Dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak. Then the Government of Kosovo was obliged to call new elections. They obviously believed that this time way to reach them through a petition was enough for the EU measures to be lifted in Kosovo. Which tells us that the talk of elections is aimed more at lifting the sanctions on Kosovo, than the vote really happening," Andric Rakic points out.

She also points out that the whole thing about new elections and the petition that would lead to them has exposed, as he says, a bizarre situation in which the citizens of Kosovo, in any municipality, cannot replace their mayor.

"That is not possible, because there are no regulations on the referendum and that issue cannot be resolved by secondary legal acts. If nothing else, this situation should have ignited the urgency to pass a law on the referendum, so that things like this would not happen. In the absence of a law on the referendum, including the regulations on popular initiatives, i.e. the local referendum, the only way to get new elections in the north is for the mayors to resign for moral reasons, first of all, because they have no legitimacy from the first day of their mandate. There are also several examples of their bad communication with citizens, especially in North Mitrovica," she says.

For the writer and journalist Zivojin Rakocevic, President of the Association of Journalists of Serbia, it is absolutely clear, as he says, that "Albin Kurti and the Pristina institutions want to erase, cancel and deaden every form of Serbian independence in the north and make that life meaningless until it disappears".

As he points out for Kosovo Online, "Kurti tries to provoke the personal insecurity of every individual, and Serbia relied on European agreements that were cheated."

"The Serbs in the north will never be Pristina, no matter how many local elections they organize. The farce surrounding the petition for the removal of non-existent mayors is an unprecedented absurdity. It would be nice if they would issue identity cards to the police officers who guard them in Zvecan, Leposavic, Zubin Potok, and Kosovska Mitrovica so that they sign petitions and vote - that way they will increase the number of voters tenfold," Rakocevic says.

According to him, "the European Union does not really exist in Kosovo and Metohija, it is only a part of the US ideas and lives in fear of chaos on the ground".

"Go through without a scratch and complete the Kosovo project - that's the Western mantra, and all our conflicts, the failed idea of democracy and the life of the common man fit into it," Rakocevic says.

Analyst Eugen Cakolli from the Democratic Institute of Kosovo reminds for Kosovo Online that the Government of Kosovo supported the idea of organizing new elections in four northern municipalities, but with the assessment that the best way to do it is at the initiative of 20 percent of citizens.

"Given the circumstances in the north and the complexity of the situation, I believe that the administrative instruction for the impeachment of the municipal presidents is not only contrary to the law but also insufficient to enable the dismissal of municipal presidents through citizens' initiative. Therefore, I see the resignations of current mayors in northern municipalities as the most pragmatic solution in the existing situation and opening the way for the election of new, legitimate authorities. This would ensure a faster and cheaper electoral process that will potentially lead to new legitimate institutions," Cakolli says.

Regarding the message of the Prime Minister of Kosovo that he expected new elections in the north in the fall, Cakolli says that if there is a petition for the removal of the mayors, it will be difficult to do so.

"Even if all the minimum deadlines are met when we are talking about the administrative instructions for the petition to replace the mayors, it is practically impossible to hold new elections in the next two to three months, he concludes.