North Kosovo mayors to be sworn in amid strife with Belgrade

Two mayors elected in recent local elections in the north of Kosovo will be sworn in on Thursday, leaving just one to assume his mandate before the 30-day deadline amid ongoing strife with Belgrade.

The municipalities of Zubin Potok, Zvecan, North Mitrovica, and Leposavic, home to significant ethnic Serb populations, headed to an extraordinary vote in April after Serb representatives resigned en masse from government institutions in December in protest of the controversial license plate issue.

The vote saw the lowest turnout in Kosovo’s history, partly due to demands from Belgrade that local Serbs not participate.

Ilir Peci and Izmir Zeqiri will be sworn in as the Kosovo Democratic Party mayors of Zvecan and Zubin Potok, respectively, on Thursday at 10 am. The oath will take place under security measures on municipal premises.

Belgrade, Serb List issue threats over swearing-in of mayors in north Kosovo

As the deadline to swear in the newly-elected mayors in the north of Kosovo approaches, calls have intensified for the action to take place, despite mounting tensions with Serbia.

Extraordinarily local elections were called in several Serb-majority municipalities in the north …

Erden Atiq was sworn in as mayor of Mitrovica at the weekend, along with ethnic Serb deputy Katarina Axhancic.

After taking the oath, Atiq said that he would work without distinction and without discrimination to normalise the situation in the municipality.

The US Ambassador to Kosovo, Jeffrey Hovenier, has said that the elections that were held on 23 April in the four northern municipalities were “in accordance with the laws of Kosovo mandated by the Constitution” but that the new mayors of the municipalities in the north must enter only in buildings where they are welcome.

“Elected officials should only enter buildings where they are welcome. The location within the municipality where the elected officials take the oath in the ceremony does not affect their status as an elected official”, he said in an interview for Telegrafin.

The American ambassador said he expects the new presidents to take on a technical role, not a political one.

“Given the low turnout, we would expect the newly elected mayors of municipalities and municipal assemblies to take a technical and not a political role,” the ambassador said.

Hovenier said that any criminal activity aimed at subverting these officials in carrying out their responsibilities would be met with severe punishment by the US and the international community.

Meanwhile, Parliament Speaker Glauk Konjufca reacted to Hovier’s statements, saying that the Constitution defines the role of mayors.

“The roles of mayors of municipalities are determined by the Constitution and their responsibilities. I think they should have neither less nor more. Anything less would be illegal and compromise our constitutional framework under which we operate,” Konjufca told the media.

“Moreover, it would be a robbery of competences, so we are a democratic state, and we are claiming to function with the constitution, rules and laws with which the society has agreed,” Konjufca said.

“Maybe the ambassador and others thought that it might be problematic to exercise my function with full powers. But we will do our best to make everyone understand that we live in a democratic state,” he added.

Last week, Vucic said he would not accept the swearing-in of any mayors in the north. According to signed agreements with Kosovo, backed by the EU, Serbia is not allowed to interfere in Kosovo elections, and there is no legal basis for Serbia to accept or not accept the results.

“They will try to hold constitutive sessions in the building north of Mitrovica, for three municipalities, and elect fake mayors, with the support of QUINT, elected in fake elections”, Vucic told reporters in Novi Sad.

“Official Belgrade does not recognise the results of these elections and has considered them undemocratic and illegal,” he added.

The Serb List Vice President Igor Simić declared that with the swearing-in of the new mayor of North Mitrovica from Vetëvendosje, “the occupation of the north has officially begun and will end when Serbs decide”.

Simić gave Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti until 1 June “to stop the repression, expropriation, arrest, persecution and attacks on Serbs”.

He added that if this continues, “the Serb population will protect itself by all means” without explaining what such means would be.

The swear-in date for the remaining mayor – the one of Leposavic – is yet to be announced.

Kurti: Low turnout in north Kosovo vote due to Belgrade blackmail

Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti attributed the turnout of just 3.47% in the north Kosovo local elections to what he called an atmosphere of intimidation and blackmail coming from Belgrade.

Some 45,000 Kosovo citizens were eligible to vote in the elections …

(Alice Taylor | Exit.al)