If majority of Serbs in the second round of elections don’t vote there are great chances that the mayors loyal to Pristina will be elected in six municipalities in Kosovo south. In that case, mayor of Novo Brdo will be an Albanian, and the remaining five mayors will be candidates of the lists, which Pristina authority favors – SLS, the Association of Kosovo Serbs and the Serbian People’s Party of Kosovo.
Milovan Drecun, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for Kosovo and Metohija warns on such a scenario. He says that the key point is that Serbs in northern Mitrovica win the power. That’s how Mitrovica will be, as planned, the administrative center of the future Community of Serbian Municipalities (ZSO). However, it is also important that south of the Ibar river, power remains in our hands: “There are real dangers that in a second round will win Serbian lists, supported by Hashim Thaci. In that case, they may obstruct the formation of ZSO, or to accept it, and then marginalize and push it into the arms of Pristina.”
Kosovo Central Election Commission has not yet announced the final results for the South, but it is certain that in five municipalities second round will be held, while in Gracanica will be crucial conditional votes that are still in the process of counting.
Candidate of “Srpska” for the Mayor of Gracanica, Branimir Stojanovic says that if it will be second round, at least 8,500 people have to go to the polls, so that the government would not fall into the hands of “Pristina Serbs.”
Oliver Ivanovic, a candidate for mayor of Mitrovica in front of the SDP list, is hoping that the international community will ensure that voting on 17 November pass without incident. “There is possibility that in the second round, in municipalities in the south, especially in Strpce and Partes, candidates from “Srpska” don’t win, though they were second in the first round.”
