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With eight votes in favor and two abstentions, the members of the Central Election Commission voted on the recommendation that on April 21, they vote for or against the removal of four Albanian mayors in the municipalities in the north of Kosovo.
This recommendation came from the CEC Secretariat, after verifying the petition signatures submitted by the municipal assemblies of Leposaviq, Zveçan, Zubin Potok and North Mitrovica.
According to the Secretariat, in these four municipalities, the requirement of 20 percent of the required signatures from the total number of voters has been reached, in order to vote for the removal of the municipal leaders.
According to the administrative instruction that enables the removal of mayors of municipalities, approved in September of last year, for this vote to be successful, 50 percent, plus one vote of citizens with the right to vote, is needed.
After that, the result is sent to the president of Kosovo, Vjosa Osmani, who has a legal deadline of 30 to 45 days to announce the holding of early elections.
The head of the CEC Secretariat, Burim Ahmetaj, said during the CEC meeting that 3,030 people have signed the petition for the initiation of procedures for the removal of the mayor of the municipality in the municipality of Leposaviq. Of them, 2,905 have been verified as belonging to the residents of this municipality by right. With this figure, the requirement of 20 percent has been met, as it was required to collect the signatures of at least 2,689 people.
In Zubin Potok, out of 1,576 signatures, 1,380 have been verified as belonging to citizens with the right to vote. From the total number of voters, for the petition to be considered valid in this municipality, at least 1,347 signatures were required.
As for the petition in Zveçan, according to the CEC, it was signed by 1,834 people and of this number, 1,380 were certified as belonging to citizens who have the right to vote in Zveçan. For the petition to pass, at least 1,347 were required to be gathered in this municipality.
Meanwhile, in North Mitrovica, 4,148 signatures were collected, of which 3,653 belonged to residents with the right to vote. In this municipality, at least 3,640 signatures were required in order for the petition to be considered valid.
The collection of signatures in the four municipalities in the north, inhabited by a majority of Serbs, took place in January of this year.
The Albanian presidents were elected in April 2023 in the elections which were boycotted by the Serbs as a sign of dissatisfaction with the policies of the Government of Kosovo.
The launch of their duties fueled tensions at the end of May last year which culminated in Zveçan, after Serbian protesters clashed with members of the NATO peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, KFOR.
The international community had requested the reduction of tensions and the announcement of new elections in the four municipalities in the north of Kosovo.
The petition was also signed by the representatives of the Serbian List, the party that boycotted the April 2023 elections.
This party, which is the largest Serb party in Kosovo and has the support of Belgrade, initiated the removal of Serbs from Kosovo institutions in November 2022 and then called for the boycott of the elections of April last year.
The departure from the institutions was done as a sign of dissatisfaction with the decision of the Government of Kosovo regarding the change of car license plates from those issued by Serbia to those issued by Kosovo, but since then this issue has been resolved.
However, in mid-October 2023, this party declared that it was ready to participate in the elections in the municipalities in the north, without setting any conditions for participation in the elections, as it had done earlier.
This position of this party was taken after the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, called on the Serbian representatives in the north of Kosovo to initiate the holding of new elections so that "the main levers of power are in their hands".
This call was preceded by an armed attack in Banjska in Zveçan on September 24, when a group of Serbs attacked the Kosovo Police, killing a policeman. The responsibility for the attack was taken by the former vice-president of the Serbian List, Millan Radoicic. /REL
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