Radosavljevic: Without new mayors and councilors, there will be no functional local governments in the North

Jovana Radosavljević
Source: Kosovo Online

Jovana Radosavljevic, Executive Director of the non-governmental organization New Social Initiative, says that the most likely scenario regarding local elections in the north is that they will be held in the regular term in the fall of 2025, despite the fact that Western countries expect Kosovo to create conditions for holding early elections in the north and the demand from Belgrade regarding these elections recently presented by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.

"Western countries expect Kosovo to create the conditions for early local elections to take place. This was part of the demands made to Kosovo last year, when measures against Kosovo were introduced, which are still in effect. Kosovo has not fulfilled any of the points set before it. However, even though there will be additional demands, as we heard in the recent address by President Vucic, which is somewhat aligned with what the West is asking of Kosovo, it is very unlikely that Kosovo will accept and create the circumstances for new local elections to take place under extraordinary conditions," Radosavljevic told Kosovo Online.

She reminds that Kosovo's Minister of Local Government Administration, Elbert Krasniqi, stated that there would be no possibility of early elections, but only regular ones, next fall.

"This is the scenario we can expect. In the meantime, we will continue to have mayors and councilors from the Albanian community who represent a minority in northern Kosovo. The initiative launched earlier this year to organize a referendum for the dismissal of mayors was unsuccessful because there was an agreement for both sides to meet halfway, meaning that the mayors would resign after the petition was initiated. However, even that would not solve the problem, as the issue lies with both the mayors and the councilors. Only by electing new mayors and councilors can we talk about functional local governments, which we currently do not have in northern Kosovo," Radosavljevic points out.