Serbs protest against changes to election law

Serbs protest against changes to election law

At the protest of the Gračanica municipal employees, Kostić said that the protest has been staged on behalf of all those who are against the bill of amendments to the Law on General Elections, which the parliament and the government of Kosovo are trying to impose.

"This election law signifies the administrative cleansing of Serbs in Kosovo. With this election law, the government and the parliament of Kosovo are showing that they do not want Serbs in Kosovo or in the Kosovo institutions," said Kostić.

Nenad Rikalo, the only Serb member of the Kosovo central election commission, cautioned earlier that if the Kosovo parliament passed the bill, Serbs' rights would be reduced in a number of aspects.

The number of eligible Serb voters would be reduced, and the control of the electoral process would then be carried out mostly by Albanian parties. Besides that, the internally displaced Serbs who are now living in other parts of Serbia would then face even more difficult procedure for registering and exercising their right to vote and, finally, the number of seats for Serbs and other minorities in the parliament would be permanently slashed, as the reserved seats would be abolished, he underlined.

Amendments to the election law envisage that "only those holding Kosovo's citizenship would have the right to vote," which means that only those who have documents issued by the Kosovo Interior Ministry would be able to register in the electoral roll. That would diminish the number of Serbs eligible to vote to around 40,000, which is several time less than the real number, he added.

Furthermore, according to the new election law, every political party of Serbs or any other community would have to pass the electoral threshold of five percent in order to secure seats in the parliament.

With a limited number of voters, Serbs in the parliament could never again have more than 10 seats, Rikalo said, stressing that according to the valid election law, Serbs could have between 18 and 22 MPs.

According to Tanjug sources, protests have been staged on Friday in all ten Serb-majority municipalities in Kosovo.

Member of the Kosovo assembly in Priština Goran Marinković said on Friday that Serb members left a session of the assembly over the controversial law.

"Serb deputies are determined not to take part in sessions until the draft law has been withdrawn from procedure," he told Beta, and announced that Serb representatives would "consult with deputies of other minority communities about their further steps."