The Head of the Kosovo Office, Marko Djuric blamed Pristina authorities over exerting pressures against Serb employees of the Kosovo Post Office through the Independent Liberal Party of Kosovo Serbs and its leader Slobodan Petrovic. At an extraordinary press briefing, Djuric said that these structures allegedly launched disciplinary proceedings, aimed at taking away votes from Srpska Lista in the upcoming elections. Petrovic refuted the allegations, and named Djuric “a pathological liar”.
“The public in Serbia should be aware that a staged attempt is underway in Kosovo, with the aim of stifling, usurping the votes of Kosovo Serbs, and so that Serbs are completely cut off from political life and deprived of the right to decide their fate,“ Djuric said.
“This organized, orchestrated plan implemented by Albanian politicians in Pristina, with the support of a part of the international community, is manifested through increasing the number of pressures on Srpska Lista and Serb voters,“ he stressed, citing as an example such a plan as the CEC’s „illegal decision“ to ban the use of Serbian ID cards and documents in the upcoming elections.
According to him, this decision was “deliberately made to deprive Kosovo Serbs of their votes and to decrease the number of Serbs who will go to the polls.”
“Albanian politicians and those who support them in Pristina hope that with the decreased number of Serb voters, their ‘protégés’, their pets, those they have chosen to be false representatives of Kosovo Serbs, people who do not suit Serbs but Albanian separatists in Pristina, will take seats promised to Serbs in the Pristina parliament,“ Djuric said.
“The only thing they hope is that Serbs will not go to the polls,“ he underlined.
The Head of the Kosovo Office then claimed that „this was not enough“ for them, and that they „started placing pressures through Slobodan Petrovic’s SLS party“.
“Therefore, Pristina orchestrated and organized pressures on Serb employees in provincial institutions through the SLS and Slobodan Petrovic. They did so by initiating disciplinary proceedings, expelling them from their posts,“ Djuric emphasized.
“Among other things, at this very moment, a widespread massive attempt to punish all Serb employees of the Kosovo Post Office in Pristina is underway, all those who refuse and will not cooperate with the representatives of Pristina and the Albanians – the organized SLS group. A group whose sole aim is to take away the votes of Srpska Lista and to diminish the influence of Serbia, [and] Belgrade in Kosovo,“ he revealed.
Djuric also added that „this scenario“ is also realized through “vote buying – human souls buying in the political sense.”
He then explained that „just before the elections,“ the Kosovo Ministry of Agriculture, „which was usurped by legitimate representatives of the Serb community and given to their protégés to run,“ started awarding agriculture grants in the value from €3,000 – 15,000. Djuric argued that the aim was “to bribe” Serbs not to vote for their representatives, but for “Serbs representing Pristina institutions.”
“And this is done in the most obvious way possible, of course, it is an illicit form of public resources for political purposes,” he concluded.
“It’s nonsense, what do we have to do with it? Marko Djuric is a pathological liar,“ SLS leader, Slobodan Petrovic responded to Djuric’s allegations in a statement for KoSSev.
“They are the ones who are expelling people from their work posts. They expel people who have cancer, they expel people from the hospital who suffered heart attacks because they were fired from their jobs, they expel cooks, everyone… This is the lowest of the low. They think that everyone is doing what they are doing. We do not need to do that. I can only be very proud that I hired people, I did not expel anyone. The SLS party and I have employed over 4,000 people who are still working to this day, and Marko Djuric is a simple pathological liar,” said Petrovic.
