Seizing the voting rights of IDPs from Kosovo, which is envisaged in the new electoral laws designed in Pristina, will legalize ethnic cleansing. The controversial regulation would virtually abolish the reserved seats for minorities in the provincial assembly.
The new law on general elections, in which the Parliament in Pristina recently debated, could produce grave consequences for people in Mitrovica North.
In addition, the document states that only Kosovo citizens with Kosovo documents can register to vote and electoral committees would not have minorities as member representatives!
CI ‘Srpska’ president Vladeta Kostic “hopes that the draft law will not be passed in the Parliamentary Committee for Communities” but “if it will pass in the Committee, further adoption could be stopped in the Assembly if two -thirds of the minority communities MPs would vote against it. I cannot imagine that a Serbian MP could vote for such a law.”
Rada Trajkovic, MP of the United Serbian List in the Assembly, said that uniting Serbian representatives is now essential and that these moves do not lead to the normalization of relations. She notes that the five Serbian MPs filed amendments to the draft law: “The loss of voting rights of IDPs would mean the legalization of ethnic cleansing. Why is it a problem for Serbs within the Parliament to participate in building institutions?”
If the proposed text of the law would be adopted, Kostic says that CI Srpska would thoroughly consider participating in the Kosovo general elections, or even call a boycott. In the current Assembly, 13 MPs are Serbs out of total 120 members.
