With eight votes in favor and two abstentions, members of the Central Election Commission (CEC) voted on the recommendation that on April 21, a vote be held for or against the removal of four Albanian mayors in the municipalities in northern Kosovo.
This recommendation came from the Secretariat of the CEC after verifying the signatures submitted by the municipal assemblies of Leposavic, Zvecan, Zubin Potok, and North Mitrovica.
According to the Secretariat, in these four municipalities, a request has been met for 20 percent of the required signatures from the total number of voters, in order to vote for the removal of municipal leaders.
According to the administrative guidance allowing the removal of mayors, approved last September, for this vote to be successful, it requires 50 per cent plus one vote of eligible citizens.
After this, 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 Secretariat of the CEC, Burim Ahmetaj, said during the CEC meeting that in the municipality of Leposavic, 3,030 people signed the petition to initiate procedures for the removal of the mayor. Of these, 2,905 have been verified to belong to the residents of this municipality with voting rights. With this figure, the requirement of 20 per cent has been met, as it was required to gather signatures from at least 2,689 individuals.
In Zubin Potok, out of 1,576 signatures, 1,380 have been verified to belong to citizens with voting rights. From the total number of voters, at least 1,347 signatures were required for the petition to be considered valid in this municipality.
Regarding the petition in Zvecan, according to the CEC, it was signed by 1,834 individuals, and from this number, 1,380 were verified to belong to citizens with voting rights in Zvecan. To pass the petition in this municipality, at least 1,347 signatures were required.
Meanwhile, in North Mitrovica, 4,148 signatures were collected, of which 3,653 belonged to residents with voting rights. In this municipality, at least 3,640 signatures were required for the petition to be considered valid.
The collection of signatures in the four municipalities in the north, predominantly inhabited by Serbs, was carried out in January of this year.
Albanian mayors were elected in April 2023 in elections boycotted by Serbs in dissatisfaction with the policies of the government of Kosovo.
The start of their duty sparked tensions in late May last year, culminating in Zvecan, as Serbian protesters clashed with NATO’s peacekeeping mission members in Kosovo, KFOR.
The international community had called for tensions to be eased and new elections to be announced in the four municipalities in northern Kosovo.
The petition was also signed by representatives of the Serb List, a party that boycotted the April 2023 elections.
This party, the largest party of Serbs in Kosovo and supported by Belgrade, initiated the withdrawal of Serbs from Kosovo institutions in November 2022 and later called for the boycott of the April elections.
The withdrawal from institutions was in dissatisfaction with the decision of the Government of Kosovo regarding the changing of car license plates from those issued by Serbia to those issued by Kosovo, but this issue has since been resolved.
However, in mid-October 2023, this party declared readiness to participate in the elections in the northern municipalities, without setting any conditions for participation, as it had done earlier.
This stance of the party came after Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić called on Serbian representatives in northern Kosovo to initiate new elections so that “the main levers of power are in their hands”.
This call was preceded by an armed attack in Banjska of Zvecan on September 24, when a group of Serbs attacked the Kosovo Police, killing a policeman. Former deputy chairman of the Serb List, Milan Radoičić, was responsible for the attack.
