By Fatos Bytyci
ZUBIN POTOK, Kosovo (Reuters) – Kosovo’s election commission has put containers by main roads for Sunday local elections in the northern part of the country even though the Serb majority there plans to boycott the vote.
Serb officials from the area, administrative staff, judges, and policemen resigned collectively in November 2022, in protest over Pristina’s plan to replace Serbian car licence number plates with those of Kosovo.
The four municipalities, which border Serbia, do not recognise authorities in Pristina and see Belgrade as their capital.
Serbs in the area are demanding the creation of an association of Kosovo Serb municipalities that was agreed a decade ago with Pristina before they take part in the vote.
Local workers have put four containers in two makeshift polling stations near the small town of Zubin Potok on the side of the road that leads to Serbia.
The works are guarded by heavily armed police brought from other areas of the country after more than 500 local Serb policemen resigned last November.
“In these four municipalities we have in total 19 polling centers, six are regular ones and 13 are alternative centers that will be held in other alternative objects (containers) in other locations in these four municipalities,” said Valmir Elezi, the spokesperson of Kosovo’s Central Election Commission.
Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti, who has repeatedly called on Serbs to participate in the election, accused Belgrade on Tuesday of intimidating them not to go and vote.
Only two mayor candidates are ethnic Serbs but they are not loyal to Belgrade. The turnout is expected to be low.
On March 18th, Pristina and Belgrade verbally agreed to implement a Western-backed plan aimed at improving ties.
The main aim of the plan is to defuse tensions in the northern part of the country by offering more autonomy to local Serbs, while allowing Pristina to control that part of its territory.
(Reporting by Fatos Bytyci; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
