Zlatan Elek has been chosen as the new leader of the Serb List in Kosovo. Elek currently serves as the acting director of the Clinical Hospital Center in North Mitrovica.

He was elected through an open vote at the Serb List Assembly session held in North Mitrovica on Tuesday, during which the Serb List also selected a new leadership. Up until now, Goran Rakić had been the leader of the party.

Simultaneously, the newly appointed vice-presidents of the Serb List include Dragiša Milović, the deputy director of the hospital in North Mitrovica, Igor Zaporozać, the head of the parallel Serbian municipality in North Mitrovica, Tanja Vujović, the dean of the Faculty of Economics, and Dragana Antonijević, a former member of the Kosovo Assembly and the director of the Student Center in North Mitrovica.

Who is Zlatan Elek?

In May 2020, the Serbian Government appointed Zlatan Elek as the acting director of the Clinical Hospital Center in North Mitrovica. This institution, like other healthcare facilities in Serbian-populated areas of Kosovo, operates under the Serbian system.

Elek later participated in meetings organized by the Serb List, including the one on November 6, 2022, a day after Serbs withdrew from Kosovo’s institutions in the north.

In his speech, he emphasized that they “had survived thanks to the support of their leadership, primarily President Aleksandar Vučić”.

Recently, he has underscored that healthcare institutions in Serbian areas in Kosovo are threatened by a “humanitarian catastrophe” due to what he referred to as “Kurti’s terror”.

He claimed that the Kosovo authorities are not allowing the import of medicines and medical supplies, a claim denied by the Ministry of Health of Kosovo.

The Serb List is the largest party representing Serbs in Kosovo and enjoys support from Belgrade.

These changes in leadership follow the events in Banjska near Zvecan in north Kosovo on September 24, when an armed group of Serbs attacked Kosovo Police and killed police officer Afrim Bunjaku. In the subsequent exchange of fire, three Serb attackers were killed.

Five days later, the then Vice President of the Serb List, Milan Radojičić, took responsibility for the attack and resigned from that position. He is being investigated in both Kosovo and Serbia.

These changes are the result of the Serb List’s willingness, as expressed on October 13, to participate in elections organized by Kosovo’s institutions in northern municipalities, after boycotting them in April 2023. During that period, Albanian mayors were elected in four northern municipalities: North Mitrovica, Zubin Potok, Zvecan, and Leposavic.

The April elections took place after Serbian officials collectively withdrew from local and central institutions in November 2022 due to their dissatisfaction with a Kosovo Government decision regarding the re-registration of illegal Serbian license plates in Kosovo.

Miodrag Marinković, from the non-governmental organization Center for Social Affirmative Action, believes that the new figures in the Serb List will likely bring no substantial changes and that this is merely an attempt at “rebranding”.

“Such a transformation can be seen in the governance of the Serbian Progressive Party in Serbia, where party leaders are replaced due to being discredited in various affairs. I think the same is happening within the Serb List. It is just an attempt at ‘rebranding’ rather than a fundamental change,” he explained.

Similarly, Serbian politician Branimir Stojanović from Graçanica also believes that any changes within the Serb List will be largely symbolic and won’t lead to “fundamental changes”.

“Therefore, it is important for our people to understand that these are mostly formal changes… I believe our people will recognize that all the changes taking place are essentially a ‘cleansing’ of a corrupt mechanism, which is difficult to transform,” Stojanović noted in a statement to Radio Free Europe.

Stojanović, along with political activist Milija Biševać from north Kosovo, is in the process of forming a new party that will serve as an “alternative to the Serb List”.

This new party is called the Serbian Popular Movement, which, according to Stojanović, will operate and “represent the interests of Serbs in all Serbian-majority areas in Kosovo”.