The resignations of mayors in the north mean nothing without the resignations of councilors

In the months-long "wrestle" between Pristina, the EU, and the US over how to replace illegitimate Albanian mayors in the north - by petition or resignation - the question of whether their departure could be enough to calm the political crisis in municipalities with a Serb majority if it wasn’t accompanied by the dissolution of local assemblies and the announcement of elections for councilors as well.

For now, the authorities in Pristina are only talking about the removal of the mayors by petition, although in the agreement from Bratislava between the EU Special Envoy for Dialogue Miroslav Lajcak and the head of the Kosovo negotiating team Besnik Bislimi, they committed themselves to four steps in the direction of de-escalation, one of which - as the Kosovo Government stated in the announcement - organizing new local elections in the north. And that should include elections for mayors and for the new composition of municipal assemblies in North Mitrovica, Leposavic, Zvecan, and Zubin Potok.

This raised the question of whether even if there is a change of the mayors in the north, councilors can be Kurti's "trump card" in prolonging the crisis and delaying the solution. Because, in case the mayors leave, the current convocation of local parliaments remains, in which there are no Serb representatives.
In the elections on April 23, which were boycotted by the Serbs and in which the turnout was only about 3.5 percent, in North Mitrovica and Leposavic the positions of mayors were taken over by candidates of Self-Determination Erden Atiq and Lulzim Hetemi. In Zvecan and Zubin Potok, the post of mayor went to the Democratic Party of Kosovo - Ilir Peci and Izmir Zeqiri. In Leposavic and Zvecan, at the end of April, a new convocation of the assembly was elected.

In Leposavic, with the help of Kosovo Special forces, the newly elected mayor Lulzim Hetemi entered the municipal building on May 29, but not the newly elected councilors, so the local assembly in this town is practically non-functional. Members of the Zubin Potok Municipal Assembly, together with the mayor, manage the municipality from an alternative location, from the local office in the village of Caber.

The Director of the KIPRED Institute, Lulzim Peci, recently pointed out that the situation in the north could not be calmed down only by the mayor’s resignation.

"Not only mayors of municipalities but also assemblies should resign. The problem is deeper than it seems; this should be a political decision of Kosovo because councilors and mayors of municipalities are from two political parties - Self-Determination and PDK," Peci said.

As Milica Rakic Andric from the NGO New Social Initiative says for Kosovo Online, numerous problems are possible in the functioning of the new mayors, if they are elected, and the municipal assemblies in the north remain in their current composition. She states that there are several ways in which the municipal assembly can be dissolved, but also indicates that the easiest is resignation, that is, handing over the mandate.

"If the mayors really resign, I do not rule out the possibility that, if not all, then some of the councilors will see that if there is a will to go to the mayoral elections, to elect a representative mayor of the municipality, to do the same for assembly. It is clear that it is not the original, first composition of the assemblies. And certain councilors, when they took on new roles within the assembly, announced that they were only there until the hosts came, as they said, and that they were actually guests there. Therefore, there is already a certain level of understanding, at least among some councilors, that they are not a representative assembly, so I would not rule out that some of them will decide to surrender their mandates in order not to initiate elections for the local assembly," Andric Rakic said.

If the mayors were to resign, and non-representative assemblies remain, she points out, of course, there would be problems in the functioning of the future mayors.

"Future mayors are elected for the rest of their mandate, which is a little less than two and a half years, and it is questionable how many decisions they will be able to push through the assembly if they remain in the assemblies we currently have. This is definitely one of the problems that should be thought about," she said.

She adds that this problem is not pointed out so much because, in her opinion, there is little chance that the mayors will also resign.

"I don't think that we are close to the resignation of the mayors, I think that this is the main reason why there is no talk about it, few people believe that the resignations will happen soon and that there will be elections for mayors by the end of the year, let alone a new assembly, "and then it's a topic that has gone into overdrive. It's certainly one of the potential problems, that you have mayors and assemblies that are, conditionally speaking, hostile to each other,” Rakic Andric concluded.

Mazllum Baraliu, a Professor of Constitutional Law from Pristina, also told Kosovo Online that he believed that the mayors would not resign. He indicated that the issue of new elections in the north had to be resolved in a dialogue in Brussels.

"The mayors have declared that they will not resign unless an agreement is reached between Self-Determination and the Democratic Party of Kosovo, which each have two presidents in four municipalities. In fact, another model has started to be implemented, in the spirit of the Bratislava agreement, between the EU and Kosovo, a model which Article 72 of the Law on Local Self-Government, which stipulates that an administrative instruction elaborates the procedure for replacing the mayor. Article 72 of the law states that a petition with the signatures of 20 percent of the voters in the municipality should be forwarded to the municipal assembly, and then to the Central Election Commission, and in that spirit and on that model, the solution to the issue of replacing the mayors and new elections is based," Baraliu points out.

He states that councilors in municipal assemblies are the owners of their mandate, indicating that the assembly is a self-governing, democratic body of a municipality, and the procedure for their election and the election of the mayors is different. He expects the issue of new local elections in the north to be resolved in the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina under the auspices of the EU.

"All this needs to be discussed, many issues are on the agenda, from the elaboration of the Brussels and Ohrid agreements, the issue of de-escalation, i.e. the fulfillment of the EU's demands from June 3 to the Government of Kosovo, which in Bratislava agreed to make it happen, and that means for the elections to be held. But, in order for them to be held, Belgrade, the Government in Belgrade, should also exert the appropriate influence so that the Serbs there, that is, the appropriate number of those members, especially the members of the Serb List, participate in the elections and that there is no pressure on people to possibly not go to the elections, because regardless of all the efforts, both by Brussels and Pristina, to fulfill the request for the holding of elections and de-escalation in that spirit, if Belgrade does not help in a direct or indirect way, or by influence or possibly pressures, as it has been shown so far, then those elections will most likely not be successful," Baraliu believes.