Parliamentary elections 2004:

The Election Day in Mitrovica, Kosovo started in a thick fog, not knowing what the day would bring. Expectations were both running high and low. Pessimists expected a day of rioting and optimists expected everything to change for the better instantaneously, like only Balkan people can. The day turned out to be a lovely day full of sunshine and no incidents worth mentioning. So did the optimists win out?

The lack of incidents surely counts as an important win, which cannot be overstated. The international community was not just fearing violence but expecting it. Security measures were intense, with police at every polling station and even a temporary increase in military presence in Kosovo. Especially in the Serbian areas there were many international observers. But being in the spotlight like that, there was little reason why anything should have happened. From the Albanian side it was even important to have the day pass peacefully, since their credibility was heavily affected by the March violence.

Three days before the election, there was a demonstration against voting in north Mitrovica. It was recorded to have 1500 participants, but clearly many left before the end rather than it swelling to a big crowd (our personal estimate near the end was 500). Mitrovica used to see much larger demonstrations. The crowd eventually walked up to the Bridge, but without major provocations or noise, and then dispersed quietly.

Instead, Kosovans have shown that they are capable of organizing fair and free elections, this time organized by the provisional institutions of self-government (PISG) rather than the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). An achievement worth mentioning and considered to be a fulfilment of a "standard", en route for the definition of final status. At that, they even managed to get a fairly decent turnout for Assembly elections in Europe. Percentages to elections in Kosovo have been steadily falling, since disappointment in government achievements have turned people away from voting. In 2000 the turnout was 79%, in 2001 (the previous Assembly elections) it was 64% and in 2002 it went down even to 54%. With this trend in mind many were expecting a turnout below 50%. But the total turnout of this election was 52%, with the figures among the majority Albanian population being almost 60%.

All the Albanian parties participated enthusiastically yet fairly in the campaigns, with media dominated by political debates, reflections, campaign messages and also many professional appeals to vote for over a month (including an SMS to every Kosovo Albanian 044 cell phone on the day of election). They are now all celebrating a win in parliament and are full of self-confidence. Also, despite fierce pressure from Serbian institutions two Kosovo Serbian parties did enlist to participate in the elections together with parties representing other minorities in the region. And they got backed up by a call to vote from the Serbian President Boris Tadic.

On the other hand, the attentive reader will have missed the Serbian minority population itself in this story so far. This is fitting, since they star in these elections also by their absence. Not even half a percent of the Kosovo Serbs cast its vote, following a strong appeal to boycott made by Serbian institutions reaching up as far as the Prime Minister of Serbia, Kostunica, and the powerful Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church. (Besides having the effect that it had, this also shows that the division of church and politics is still not complete here.) The almost complete boycott is a clear loss to democracy.

The registration of the second Serbian political party actually occurred only after huge international pressure and even took a bizarre exception on the election rules by allowing them to be added (by manually stamping all the ballot tickets) only two weeks before the elections. The appeal in favour of voting by Serbian President Tadic was itself also a result of international pressure. It clearly damaged his authority in Serbia, with even the threat of impeachment having been uttered. The international community seems to have overplayed its hand, ending up damaging their single most important ally in Belgrade.

With hardly 1000 Serbs coming to the polls throughout Kosovo, maybe violent incidents did not occur simply "by lack of victims". Almost all the Serbs who did want to vote have effectively been scared out of it, rather than facing a visible confrontation in front of the polling stations. If not even those working at the polling stations are willing to vote, you need to be very firm in your conviction to brave the boycott out; especially in a close-knit society where you can easily be pointed out. After visiting a polling station in Leposavic first, our Serbian colleague was even addressed at the central polling administration with the question "who gave you the right to talk to the head of that polling station?" To a certain extent the typically non-violent tool of a boycott was used to exert social violence by de facto preventing people from participating. An active boycott, where you come to the polls and intentionally cast an empty vote or write your message on the ballot ticket, would have been a much stronger, and still anonymous, signal. Mr. Oliver Ivanovic, the leader of the Serb faction in the Kosovan parliament concluded that "people did not go to vote out of fear". This was confirmed by members of the Roma community in north Kosovo, who feared to be recognized and be confronted later by radicals of the Serb community. As Mr. Jessen-Pettersen, the head of the UNMIK administration stated afterwards: "Preventing people from voting is not a success. Getting people to vote is."

It appears that the turnout among any of the minority groups was low. In South Mitrovica, where one head of a polling station, representing in name the Turkish Political Party, made it very clear he had very little illusions about the elections but simply considered it a good opportunity to make some money (around € 60.- including the preparation). The low minority turnout indicates a very low confidence in and identification with this parliament in Pristina. It seems the parties will remain strongly divided along ethnic lines for a long time to come. This situation is stimulated rather than opposed by the reservation of the twenty "set-aside seats" for minorities. These seats (ten for the Serbs, four for the different Roma groups: Roma, Ashkali and Egyptians, three for the Bosniacs, two for the Turkish and one for Serbian Muslims: the Gorani) might be the only reason that these "minority parties" are participating. And the idea of having these communities integrated into the larger political parties seems to be prevented from the root.

So essentially the slight "wins" in terms of percentage of the votes for all the Albanian parties originate mostly from the low turnout among the minorities and especially the complete absence of the Serbs, who got 11% in the previous consultations. All the parties would have lost a seat or two if the Serbs would have done the same this time. The only significant winner would be Ora, a new party lead by media tycoon and intellectual Veton Surroi, who managed to enter the political scene at fourth place. But he had put his hopes up for quite a bit more than 6%, taking into account the huge campaign efforts (and costs), so it is doubtful if Ora’s election party will be very euphoric either.

It remains to be seen if the Serbs will benefit from this outcome. They have shown a great consensus, with more than 99% partaking in the boycott and it is a statement that dominated these elections. Marko Jaksic, member of the anti-voting campaign, and Radmila Trajkovic, Serb National Council leader, triumphantly announced that the boycott "showed that the UN mission in Kosovo has officially failed" with the only solution being "decentralization" and "negotiation with Belgrade and 7 millions Serbs rather than one hundred thousand". But they probably came out with less influence, rather than more. Even if some politicians still agree to occupy the ten set-aside seats, they will not be considered as really representing anybody. The Serbs in Kosovo are in fact not very much liked in Belgrade. Mr Ivanovic may very well be right to say that they "will face great consequences as a result of boycotting the elections", or, as another Kosovan Serb in north Mitrovica put it: "The only right we have is to vote. And now we didn’t use it."

Turnout in Mitrovica was only 38.8%. Even with the Serbian boycott - which was almost complete here - only around 46% of registered Albanians went to the polls, far below the Kosovo average. Does this mean that a decreasing number of people – in fact a minority – still believe that politics can bring a solution for this divided town? A teacher at a secondary school in South Mitrovica, otherwise a very gentle and friendly person, said on the Election Day: "there is only one problem in Mitrovica: the Serbs". This is only an example of the general feeling of increased animosity. The boycott of the Serbs was not a much-discussed issue in the South polling stations. This gives the impression that people do not really care about working things out together, in the Assembly. The boycott seemed to be received as a message that the Serbs do not care about this either. Therefore the outcome looks like a step away from peaceful integration.

Mitrovica is the outpost of both the extremists and the moderates on both sides. This is where it all comes together. Since March 2004 the civil society, working towards more interethnic communication in this once completely multi-ethnic town, has met significant changes. In the South there was actually an increase in cooperation and sympathy for the work of organisations like CBM or the Balkan Peace Team, fuelled by a sense of urgency and shame for what "we, the Albanians" had done during the riots in March. In the north the response has been reduced dramatically and filled with cynicism and fear of repetition. The number of people willing to cooperate with Albanians (openly) has been reduced, although remarkably those with multiethnic agency staff experiences such as Association for Peace or CBM are still eager to continue to work towards reconciliation. The election boycott only strengthened the idea that cooperation is not possible at the moment, an idea which rather needs to be discouraged. To do so, a lot of work still needs to be done also within rather than among different ethnic communities.

But the civil society is still very small and weak in Mitrovica, especially in the north. People who would like to oppose this boycott and try and work together for a shared Kosovan future have hardly anywhere to turn to by means of organisations strong enough to face up to pressures from Belgrade. Nor was there a serious civil organisation to support the boycott, apart from politicians. The speakers at the demonstration on Wednesday were mostly dubious figures, not representatives of strong unions or NGOs. There are many reasons for this weakness - collapse of the main industry, Trepca mines, which employed the majority of the citizens, regardless of ethnicity; the influx of more conservative and even radical refugees from the countryside; the lack of official structures and rule of law; the destruction of cultural life - but the need to support and build a strong civil society that has the courage to oppose political pressure is clearer and greater than ever.

It seems that the Kosovo Serb boycott indicates a complete lack of faith in the Kosovo institutions. That makes the chances of them wanting to stay in an independent multi-ethnic Kosovo very slim. If the institutions fail so complete, it is solely up to the civil society to build some confidence at the grass root level, or the future of a town like Mitrovica will be very grim indeed. With little changes even in the ratio of the political parties, Kosovo seems to have won nor lost anything - yet. But the dangers of loosing in the future have increased, which is clearly worrying with the status discussion coming up next year.