According to Kosovo Central Election Commission’s (CEC) interpretation, there is no possibility that minorities’ parties can get additional seats in the case they would pass the threshold, said Nenad Rikalo.

“Minorities, according to CEC, can get only ten guaranteed seats for Serbian and ten of other ethnic communities. Within those guaranteed seats, distribution would be carried out for single minority lists and parties in line with the number of votes they won in elections. Possibility that any Serbian party could have more than ten seats would exist only in case if, like any other party, it wins the number of votes needed for having more than provided ten guaranteed seats,” explains Rikalo.

In practice it would mean, if such interpretation of the law by CEC is valid, that the Serbian List, even in the case of passing the threshold, after re-counting of 13 thousand of conditional votes from Serbia, would not win additional seven-eight seats in the Kosovo Assembly. The Serbian List would actually remain on eight-nine seats within the guaranteed seats for the Serbian community, what they would have and without passing the threshold.

“Such interpretation of the election law, that is, Article 111, Section 2a, resulted from the version in  English language of the law, where contrary to translations of the law in Albanian and Serbian languages where it unambiguously writes that threshold is valid and for minority parties, linguistic formulation allows and other interpretations,” said Rikalo.