Deutsche Welle on the recall of the mayor: Elected with 100 votes, 6,800 needed for removal

In four predominantly Serbian municipalities in northern Kosovo, a vote to recall the mayors will be held tomorrow, April 21st. Although organized based on a previously signed petition, it seems that most citizens will not participate in this vote, reports Deutsche Welle.

Igor Dasic from Zvecan emphasizes that boycotting is a logical decision, considering the conditions in which Serbs live.

"There is no trust in the institutions in Pristina, and we are all fed up with political games. The only solution for this crisis is the resignation of all mayors and council members," Dasic believes.

The Serbian List has called for a boycott of the recall vote for mayors elected a year ago in elections that were also boycotted.

Other political options, like Serbian Democracy, have called for the postponement of the vote and for it to be organized by the OSCE due to citizens' distrust in Kosovo institutions. Some opposition political representatives have completely opposed even signing the petition.

For the Serbian List, the decision to boycott is not so much an expression of political protest as an attempt to avoid accountability for a potential recall failure, which would essentially legitimize the current mayors.

According to Kosovo regulations, the success of an election does not depend on a quorum, but the criterion for a successful recall is very high: 50 percent plus one of the registered voters must turn out and vote for removal.

For instance, to recall the current mayor of Leposavic, who was elected with 100 votes, at least 6,800 voters need to vote.

In that municipality, since Kosovo elections have been organized, a maximum of 7,200 people have voted for Serbian candidates – and that was under far more favorable political circumstances, despite numerous reports of irregularities and multiple voting.

The elections for mayors, which Serbs boycotted, were held on April 23, 2023, among other things at these improvised polling places.

Apart from the inflated voter lists, according to which 46,500 voters live in four municipalities in the north, voter motivation is also a problem.

"There is no point in participating in a system that tramples all your rights and shows at every step that it does not want you there," says Dasic for DW.

He himself could not vote, even if he wanted to. Dasic is just one of hundreds of citizens from northern Kosovo whose families fear that their members are on, what they say, "Kurti's list for arrest."

Therefore, Dasic is currently not residing in Kosovo. His family believes he is on the list because he reported to the Kosovo Police Inspectorate that he was physically attacked by five Kosovo police officers.

"In my thirty-five years, this is the first house slava I have not attended. The only reason is, I believe, the irrational fear of my family that I am on the infamous 'Kurti's list' since that incident and that I will end up in prison like many Serbs," says Dasic.

Over the past year, dozens of citizens from northern Kosovo have reported assaults by officials, but in most cases, there was no resolution, or it was determined that the police acted professionally.

Special units of the Kosovo Police have been permanently stationed in northern Kosovo since February 2022, and since November of that year, when about 2,000 Kosovo Serbs resigned from Kosovo institutions at the call of the Serbian List, besides the Special Police, the regional police are mostly composed of officers of Albanian nationality.

Northern Kosovo has been in a deep crisis since that moment, which is only deepening. Moreover, in the official dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, there is no answer to the crisis.

The international community in Kosovo does not look favorably on the call to boycott the recall vote. Its representatives believe that this shows that Serbian political representatives will not participate even in elections that could result from a successful recall vote.

The Government of Kosovo also disapproves of the decision, stating that it is orchestrated from Belgrade. While Belgrade is viewed as a destabilizing factor, other actors from the Serbian community in Kosovo are expected to be more constructive.

However, Serbs – although many of them believe that leaving the institutions was a mistake – are hard to convince that the problems that arose despite being in the institutions can be solved by an unconditional return to the same institutions.

"Serbs have lost political rights, Pristina and the Quint have lost the trust of Serbs in any justice within the Kosovo system, while the Albanian people have gained nothing from the fact that Serbs live worse," assesses Igor Dasic from Zvecan.

Under such circumstances, at least when it comes to northern Kosovo, the return of Kosovo Serbs to the political life of Kosovo is not in sight for now.