LOCAL PRESS

Elections to be held on 24 April, most probably (Politika)

Elections at all levels will be held most probably on 24 April, Politika has learned. One of the deputy vice presidents of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) explained this possibility with procedural reasons. “This is one week before 1 May and the Christian holiday Easter that will be on the same day and it is pointless to hold elections at that time. Elections at the local level must be held by 6 May at the latest, when the local elections were held four years ago, so that 24 April is the logical date of the new elections,” says the SNS official, who wished to remain anonymous. Asked in what manner the elections will be slated, he says: “I expect in next two to three days Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic to send a joint statement of the Serbian government for dissolving the Serbian parliament and slating elections. This explanation will be forwarded to Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic, who will give the final word on slating early parliamentary elections,” says this minister. He expects the current government to meet again before Vucic sends the explanation. The proposal may be passed with full consent of all government members or outvoting in the government headquarters.

Serbian parliamentary elections to be slated in Kosovo and Metohija, most probably (Novosti)

It is expected that the Serbian parliamentary elections will be slated on the territory of Kosovo and Metohija as well, but the OSCE technical assistance will be needed for their organization, just as in the previous cases. As things stand, the local elections in Kosovo and Metohija will not be slated, since Belgrade committed itself with the Brussels agreement that the Kosovo Serbs will take part in the local elections in the Kosovo system, which they did in 2013 when the state leadership called them to turn out for the elections in northern Kosovo. The chairman of the Serbian parliamentary Committee for Kosovo and Metohija Milovan Drecun opines that parliamentary elections will be held in Kosovo and Metohija despite the possible resistance by Pristina, while local elections in Kosovo and Metohija have already been held according to the Brussels agreement that envisages the formation of the Community of Serb Municipalities after them. Asked whether the Serbian Constitution will be violated if local elections are not slated in Kosovo and Metohija as well, Drecun says that this issue concerns lawyers but that the situation at present doesn’t differ from the one in 2012 when the agreements have been reached in Brussels in the meantime. According to analyst Dusan Janjic, there is a chance for Belgrade and Pristina to agree on holding parliamentary elections in Kosovo, for which there are two arguments: “First, the Kosovo Serbs have Serbian citizenship and have the right to vote, and the Serbian parliament is not a ‘parallel’ institution that is ‘pinching’ Pristina. The second argument that Belgrade can use in talks with the international community is that the status issue has not been resolved. Janjic opines that local elections will not be held in Kosovo and Metohija since Belgrade committed to abolish the local authorities in Kosovo and Metohija that belong to the Serbian system.

Djuric heads Serbian delegation in Brussels (RTS/FoNet)

The Head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric will head the delegation within the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue at the expert level between 18 and 20 January in Brussels. The statement reads that the topics will be the formation of the Community of Serb Municipalities, telecommunications, freedom of movement, university diplomas and other open issues. The meetings of the Belgrade and Pristina delegations will be held in the building of the European External Action Service (EEAS).

Special court for KLA crimes to be located in Hague (Tanjug)

A special court to try crimes committed by the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) will be set up in The Hague and should start work during the year. Announced on Friday, the move was welcomed by Dutch officials, who said it was important that justice be done, Tanjug reported.

According to a release from the Dutch government, the court will try serious crimes allegedly committed in 1999-2000 by members of the KLA against ethnic minorities and political opponents. “Possible suspects may be seen by sections of Kosovo society as freedom fighters, and witnesses may feel threatened in Kosovo. This is why the option of trying cases outside Kosovo was explored,” the release said. “It is important for justice to be done,” said Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders. The court, made up of international judges, is to be established under Kosovo law as a Kosovo court administering justice outside Kosovo. It will be financed from EU funds.

Indictment against Covic over money for Kosovo (N1)

The Prosecution for Organized Crime has issued an indictment against Nebojsa Covic and six other people, N1 has learned. They are suspected of fraud with money intended for the Kosovo Serbs. They are charged with abusing, in the business of purchase and construction of property, their official position and that of the authorized person and with bribery. This refers to the period from January 2003 to September 2005. The Prosecution for Organized Crime launched in August 2014 an investigation against Neboja Covic, former secretary of the Coordinating Center Andjelka Radenkovic, former head of the Kosovska Mitrovica District Dragan Kalaba and the owner of the private companies Komgrap gradnja, Daki and Masters. They are suspected with obtaining illegal profit in the amount of around 10 million euros. N1 reports that the prosecution suspects that Covic, Radenkovic and Kalaba enabled in the business of purchase of property in northern Kosovska Mitrovica, and with previous agreement with the owners of the private companies, illegal payments to be conducted based on fictive documentation. According to the order of the investigation, the Coordinating Center paid 426 million dinars to the Daki company, with which only 18 properties were purchased, for which they spent nearly 181 million dinars, while there is no valid documentation for the remaining of around 245 million dinars. Covic was interrogated in this investigation at the beginning of 2015 and according to the media, he denied his guilt.

Analysts look at reasons behind decision to go to polls (B92/Deutsche Welle)

The ruling coalition in Serbia had no valid political reason to go to early elections at this time – at least at first glance, writes Deutsche Welle. The German broadcaster said that Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic decided in favor of simultaneous local, provincial, and parliamentary elections despite a convincing majority in parliament, “a fairly harmless opposition” and opinion polls still giving his SNS party high approval ratings. The local media speculate that elections will most likely be held on April 24 – as they will have to fit between April 22 and May 22 – while Deutsche Welle turned to political analyst Djordje Vukadinovic and Faculty of Political Sciences professor Zoran Stojiljkovic for insight into the reasons behind Vucic’s move. According to Vukadinovic, “official reasons” cited by the prime minister are “illogical, frivolous, irrational, and largely insulting to the common sense of regular citizens.” This analyst noted it was “nonsense” to talk about “a dramatic atmosphere in society” while the SNS had absolute majority in parliament and faced no protests or strikes. Instead, he believes the party decided that bundling parliamentary elections with local and provincial ballots was seen as useful by the ruling party “that appraised it is not doing well in larger towns and in the province of Vojvodina.” In this way, Vukadinovic said, the campaign for parliamentary elections will overshadow local and provincial topics. There are also “the unfulfilled promises” of the authorities – “and what better way to forget old promises than to start a new cycle of promises with new deadlines.” Zoran Stojiljkovic describes Vucic as “an excellent political tactician” and believes the decision to go to the polls was motivated by his calculation that now is the best moment for yet another electoral cycle that would yield two additional years of his government’s mandate – “which would mean to rule until the symbolic year 2020.” Stojiljkovic thinks there will be “no further economic recovery” while more public sector sackings will come, meaning that the current circumstances “will hardly repeat.” This situation is driving Vucic to consider this “the optimal moment to pull together the resources, use the ruling party’s position also in relation to the media, and in relation to the money that can be received for the campaign, and in the end repeat a good election result.” The professor does not think there will be any significant changes compared to the results of the previous election, and expects the opposition to after all form alliances in order to cross the five-percent threshold, “as this is literally about their political survival.” Stojiljkovic also believes that the turnout will have an important effect on the results, where lower numbers would favor the ruling SNS, while more people voting would make matters “more uncertain.” According to him, the worst thing for the SNS will be if they are forced to once again form a post-election coalition. Djordje Vukadinovic dismissed one of Vucic’s reasons to call elections -“the negative atmosphere in society” – as insufficiently serious – “an alibi, as if some sort of excuse was needed.” The analyst also sees no danger that reforms might slow down because he “sees no reforms” – instead there is a political and financial grouping “gradually taking over all the levers of power in the country.” Vukadinovic also “fears what awaits us in these elections – considering that in the past few years the struggle for some local community (administration) would turn into a small civil war.” “I can imagine what will happen now when stakes are much higher”, he said, and added that the authorities in the past days engaged in “demonstrations of loyalty on the European path” as if they wanted to ensure that “the West would close their eyes a little and turn a blind eye a little on everything that will be happening in the campaign in the coming months.” “And it all likely won’t be too much in line with the proclaimed principles of the democratic election process and the respect of human rights and political opponents,” Vukadinovic said.

REGIONAL PRESS

Radoncic: SDA-SBB coalition will certainly last at least until 2018 (Oslobodjenje)

Fahrudin Radoncic, President of the Alliance for a Better Future (SBB), said that he believes in Bakir Dautbasic’s and Bilsena Sahman’s innocence. The two were arrested last week on charges of witness tampering related to the Keljmendi case, and expressed his confidence that the arrests have been orchestrated as an attempt to destroy the SDA-SBB coalition, coalition that stabilized the situation in the Federation of B&H and country. “Someone was counting on my weak nerves. Apparently the person doesn’t know me, because he expected me to bang my fist on the table like a raging tiger, and say “this is the end of the coalition”. That would then be a pressure on the judiciary,” said Radoncic on TV OBN. Commenting on the possibility that Dautbasic, although he is in detention, could be appointed as a Minister of Transport and Communication of B&H, Radoncic said that this is the “Bosnian reality.” He reminded that everyone is innocent until proven guilty and added that some others in the function came from prisons and have performed their jobs excellently, like Dragan Covic and Mirko Sarovic. Radoncic stressed that there is “Keljmendization” on the scene, not just for him but for the entire SBB with the final goal of eliminating the SBB from the political scene in B&H. However, regardless of the pressure, Radoncic says that the SBB-SDA coalition will last until at least 2018, because it is in the interest of B&H as a state and Bosniaks as a people. Who has the right to destroy the coalition that stabilized B&H? We will certainly remain in the coalition at least until 2018,” said Radoncic.

Without the consent regarding the Bosniak veto, the decision will be sent to the RS Constitutional Court (Srna)

Joint Commission of the National Assembly and the National Council of Republika Srpska (RS) for the harmonization of laws, regulations and acts, has not reached the agreement on the decision of initiating the procedures for the protection of the vital national interests of the Bosniak Caucus regarding the information by the Minister of Internal Affairs on the activities of the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) and the conclusions by the RS government. Chair of the RS National Council, Nada Tesanovic, pointed out that the decision in question by the Bosniak Caucus is going to be referred to the RS Constitutional Court. “The problem is that Bosniak Caucus does not file the amendments, it rejected the entire text of an act. Therefore, in the future, we have to talk about this kind of decision making regarding the protection of the vital national interest,” said Tesanovic to the reporters in Banja Luka, adding that she hold the consultations with the judges of the RS Constitutional Court, regarding the whole issue. Bosniak Caucus in the RS Council of Peoples earlier decided on the initiation of the procedures for the protection of the vital national interest to the information of the Minister of Interior on activities of SIPA and the conclusions by the RS Government regarding those activities. This club stood by its decision on initiating the vital national interests, at the session of the RS National Council, which was held on 12 January. The RS Government, in December last year, concluded that the State Investigation and Protection Agency acted illegally and unconstitutionally, during the raids in Novi Grad. RS National Assembly at a special session held in December, adopted the conclusions according to which the entire operation has been a major violation of the RS Constitution, B&H Constitution and RS laws and has unnecessary threatened the integrity of the RS Ministry of Internal Affairs, and distressed the citizens and the public at large.​

Federation of B&H intends to fully centralize the Missing Persons Institute of B&H (Srna)

Director of the Republika Srpska Reserch Centre of War, War Crimes and Tracing Missing Persons, Milorad Kojic, believes that it is possible to initiate the dead-point of the process of tracing missing persons of Serb nationality in Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H), but before it happens, it is necessary to reform the management structure of the Missing Persons Institute of B&H. “By this reform, the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) would leave the role of the co-founder of the B&H Missing Persons Institute, and the B&H Council of Ministers would assume full competence over the Institute,” Kojic told Srna. He has stressed that the current state of the Institute is fully unsustainable, because the principle of consensus is not respected, and the legitimacy of acts passed by the Institute management structure is questioned, bearing in mind the fact that the mandate of the management members, except the Serb members, has expired. Kojic, who was, on behalf of the RS, a member of the former Working Group tasked to amend the Agreement on assuming the role of the co-founders of the Missing Persons Institute, has said that the B&H Council of Ministers should form a new Working group in order to try again to reach an agreement on the Institute management structure reform.  Kojic has said that, while being a member of the Working Group, his position was that RS should participate more in the selection of the Board of Directors, and the Steering and the Supervisory Boards of the Institute. He added that it was not possible to reach an agreement in the former Working Group, as the Federation of B&H intends to fully centralize the Missing Persons Institute of B&H in a way to abolish the Board of Directors and the Steering and the Supervisory Boards of the Institute. “The RS finds this unacceptable, because in this way the search for missing persons of Serb nationality would be in even more difficult position,” Kojic has concluded. The co-founders of the Missing Persons Institute are the B&H Council of Ministers and the International Commission on Missing Persons, which earlier expressed its intention to leave the founding treaty and to shift the tracing missing persons process to the Council of Ministers.​

European Commissioner Hahn urges party leaders to agree upon election date (MIA)

European Commissioner Johannes Hahn called on political leaders in Macedonia to fully implement the June/July agreement he helped broker. The implementation of the agreement was stopped after the opposition SDSM party said it will not go to the elections on­ 24 April. After his meeting with the Macedonian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Fatmir Besimi and Nikola Poposki, Hahn told the MIA correspondent in Brussels that it is very important to have well prepared, fair and transparent elections, held under international democratic standards, and that the European Union will provide observers to assure the opposition SDSM party that the elections are fully fair. Hahn confirmed that during the marathon, 12 hours long talks in Skopje which he attended, some of the parties asked for the date to be postponed to June 5. “My point was that it is important to have elections under our standards, in order to regain the credibility of the country, and this is important to have a follow­-up step ­ to convince our member countries to open accession talks,” Hahn said. The European Commission conditioned its recommendation to open accession talks for Macedonia with implementation of reform priorities and the conduct of the elections agreed for April. The EC has recommended opening accession talks since 2009, but the decision was always blocked by Greece at the European Council level. In Macedonia, the State Election Commission split along political lines, with the SDSM appointed President saying that they are not ready to organize elections by 24 April, and the members appointed by the three parties that want the elections to go ahead, saying that the elections can be held. Hahn, who last week in Skopje expressed his assurances that with full commitment, the elections can be held on the agreed day, said on Monday that the Commission was given a promise to receive more computer equipment and additional staff to make the necessary examination of the voting registry. Still, bearing in mind the staunch refusal by SDSM to take part in the polls, Hahn said that it is important to have an agreement between all the parties. The Commissioner reminded that elements from the agreement were implemented with delays, but were eventually implemented in full, and asked for a similar approach to the holding of the early elections. Hahn also called for a stronger push to implement the reform priorities, outlined in a report prepared by German expert Rheinhard Priebe, which propose reforms in the fields of the judiciary, control over the security services and the media. The European Commissioner of Neighborhood policy and enlargement negotiations, also discussed his remark of Macedonia that the country and the region are facing renewed security challenges from the likely closure of borders further north for the flow of refugees. Hahn said that this issue, and the economic and unemployment situation, are examples of problems that require full attention from the Macedonian government and the opposition party, which is an added pressure to agree on the date for the elections.

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Kosovo war crimes court to be established in The Hague (Jurist, by Taylor Gillan, 17 January 2016)

The Dutch government on Friday announced the establishment of a special court being set up in The Hague to investigate and try alleged war crimes committed by ethnic Albanian rebels during and after Kosovo’s 1998-99 guerilla war. According to the government announcement [press release], the court, which is called the Kosovo Relocated Specialist Judicial Institution and is funded by the European Union, will “try serious crimes allegedly committed in 1999-2000 by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army against ethnic minorities and political opponents.” The court, made up of international judges, will apply Kosovo laws, making it a Kosovan national court administering justice outside of Kosovo rather than an international tribunal. Witnesses against KLA fighters are often reluctant to testify [Reuters report] in Kosovo, as such fighters are often viewed as freedom fighters there. Kosovo’s Parliament approved [JURIST report] the creation of such a war crimes court in August. War crimes committed during the Kosovo War have been prosecuted in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website], but relations between Serbia and Kosovo remain strained. In July, 11 Kosovo Albanian men were sentenced [JURIST report] to prison for war crimes. In February 2014 Serbia’s war crimes court convicted [JURIST report] nine former paramilitaries for their involvement in the genocide of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in 1999. Two former Serbian secret service officials were arrested [JURIST report] under suspicion that they planned the 1999 killing of an anti-government journalist. In 2013 Amnesty International [advocacy website] accused [JURIST report] the UN Mission in Kosovo of failing to adequately investigate war crimes committed during the conflict. Kosovo held its first local elections [JURIST report] in November 2013 since it seceded from Serbia in 2008. Serbia still does not recognize the secession.

Serbia PM calls for snap elections with EU in mind (AFP, by Jovan Matic, 18 January 2015)

Belgrade – Serbia’s Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic on Sunday called for early elections in a bid to cement stability as the Balkan country negotiates its accession into the European Union.

Vucic made his announcement during a meeting of his conservative, pro-EU party’s leadership in Belgrade, two years before new elections are actually due under the Serbian constitution.

The Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) holds an absolute majority in parliament with 158 of 250 seats. In order for early elections to happen, the prime minister can either resign or he can ask President Tomislav Nikolic — who is an ally and founded the SNS party — to end the parliament and call for a snap vote. A parliamentary poll would then have to be held within 60 days.

“My decision is that we will have elections… Serbia needs four more years of stability so that it is ready to join the European Union,” Vucic said. In December, Serbia began the first two of 35 stages in negotiations for Belgrade to join the EU. The so-called chapters in membership talks focused on Belgrade’s normalisation of relations with its breakaway territory of Kosovo and on financial control. The opening of accession talks appears partly linked to Europe’s migration crisis — the continent’s worst since World War II — as the EU had earlier called for a pause in adding new members to the bloc. Serbia has been hard hit by the migrant crisis as it has been a major transit point for hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and misery, and seeking to start new lives in EU countries like Germany and Sweden. Still, the EU has ruled out any enlargement of the bloc before 2020 even for countries that have started accession talks. Serbia must “by 2020 complete its reform process and reach the gates” of EU accession, Vucic said. “We want a society that wants to work hard and we want Serbians to tell us if they want the same thing.”

– Kosovo is key issue –

In March 2014 the SNS was swept back to power in a vote that was held two years before parliament’s mandate was due to expire. Serbia, which fought a war with Kosovo in 1998-1999, does not recognise its sovereignty. More than 100 countries recognise Kosovo’s independence, but it is not a United Nations member state. The EU in October signed a long-awaited accord with Kosovo, which is also a potential candidate for accession. A new EU-backed court to try war crimes by ethnic Albanian guerrillas during the Kosovo conflict will open this year in The Hague. The 1998-1999 war pitted ethnic Albanian guerrillas seeking independence for the southern Serbian province of Kosovo against Serbia’s forces, who withdrew from the territory after an 11-week NATO bombing campaign.

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Media summaries are produced for the internal use of the United Nations Office in Belgrade, UNMIK and UNHQ. The contents do not represent anything other than a selection of articles likely to be of interest to a United Nations readership.