Vujinovic: Serbs could already face difficulties retaining power in the municipalities in the next elections

Security studies researcher Nikola Vujinovic does not expect surprises in Serb-majority municipalities in the upcoming elections, but he emphasizes that the electoral engineering of the Pristina authorities will continue in the future, and that already in some of the next elections Serbs could face problems retaining power in those municipalities.

“I do not expect surprises in this round of local elections. We already saw that kind of electoral engineering in the parliamentary elections, when one mandate was taken away from the Serb List. In these elections, I do not expect such surprises. However, the tendency is that this engineering will continue, and that already in the next round we may have problems holding on even to the municipalities with the largest Serb majorities,” Vujinovic told Kosovo Online.

According to him, the current tendencies of changing the ethnic composition are most visible in the municipalities in northern Kosovo, although, as he points out, the situation south of the Ibar is also difficult for the Serb community.

“The engineering from Pristina is most visible in the north of Kosovo and Metohija, due to politically malicious attacks on the Serb ethnic community. Although this is not yet visible in the numbers, we can see that the number of Serb families there is decreasing, that they are being expelled, that their property is being seized, and that land and farmland are being taken over for bases, police, and so on. Although, unfortunately, south of the Ibar the situation is even harder for the Serb community, it attracts less public attention, because the north of Kosovo is the stronghold of the Serb people, and this is Kurti’s attempt to penetrate it,” our interlocutor added.

As he pointed out, with every election new preconditions appear for Serbs who want to take part, with the goal of reducing the number of voters from the Serb community.

“In every round of elections, there have been certain preconditions that had to be met. The primary one, which most displaced Serbs do not want to accept, are Kosovo documents, since that is a precondition for voting. Another was in the parliamentary elections, with the so-called conditional polling stations, where earlier you could go anywhere in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija and vote as you wished. Now it is uncertain whether that will be repeated. This is yet another maneuver and instrument of the so-called Kosovo government of Albin Kurti, in order to reduce the number of Serb votes and thereby at least preserve part of those positions they won a few years ago in local administrations,” Vujinovic concluded.