Headlines - 04.06.2014 The north is not giving in (Zëri) State symbols have once again created dilemmas for Serb leaders, with regards to whether or not they will participate in Kosovo’s 8 June elections. Srpska candidates from the six municipalities south of the River Ibër/Ibar will continue with pre-election activities, while the four municipalities in the north of Kosovo will not campaign. This was confirmed for Radio Free Europe by the mayor of Mitrovica North, Goran Rakic. He stressed that northern municipalities will not call on their citizens to participate in Sunday’s elections if Pristina does not change its positions. “Srpska held a gathering in Graçanicë/Gracanica, and it has started its election campaign in southern municipalities. Little time is left and they should use it in the best possible way,” said Rakic. “We have requested that the ballots be status-neutral. However, Pristina is rejecting all our requests for no reason. No country in the world uses state symbols on their ballots,” he added. On Tuesday, officials from Belgrade called on Serbs to listen to their municipal mayors, who are meeting today in Belgrade with the Prime Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic. The latter, stated before the meeting with the northern mayors that non-participation in elections is not a solution. Leposaviq/Leposavic boycotts elections (Lajm) The municipality of Leposaviq/Leposavic will boycott Kosovo’s 8 June parliamentary elections. This municipality’s leaders said that the necessary conditions for elections are not in place. Also, political parties and candidates will not be allowed to campaign in the territory of the Leposaviq/Leposavic municipality. CEC: Serbs can get more than 10 seats (Tribuna) The Central Election Commission (CEC) has approved an instruction detailing procedures for allocating seats at the Kosovo Assembly following the 8 June elections. It specifies that there is a possibility for the Serb community to gain more than the 10 reserved seats if their parties manage to win more than 80,000 votes. The same principle also applies for the other minority communities. CEC officials said the formula can be applied correctly only once election results are confirmed. ECAP rejects 9,000 complaints (Kosova Sot) The Election Complaints and Appeals Panel (ECAP) is reported to have reviewed all complaints, and out of 9,172, only 206 were approved. The rest have been rejected as being groundless. The head of ECAP, Shukri Sylejmani, said the panel reviewed all cases individually and professionally and managed to decide on them before the legal deadline. “Most of the complaints were incomplete and lacked supporting documents and evidence”, said Sylejmani. The complaints were related to voting outside of Kosovo. 27,733 monitors for June elections (Botapress) The Central Election Commission (CEC) has reported that all election preparations have been completed. The total number of monitors in the elections is 27,733. “The ballot-printing process has been finalized, and all election materials are of high quality, as they were in the 2013 local elections”, says an announcement from the CEC. APA: Hashim Thaci to be prime minister again (Kosova Sot) The Austrian News Agency (APA) has quoted reports of the daily paper Tiroler Tageszeitung which said that the outgoing prime minister of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci, has a good chance to win Sunday’s elections. “Compared to the charismatic Thaci, Isa Mustafa from the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) cannot hope to become prime minister of Kosovo,” wrote the paper. It added that the main race will be between the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) and LDK but that Mustafa is behind in the polls. 31 bodies exhumed from Rudnica mass grave (Koha Ditore) The paper reports on the front page that the mortal remains of 31 victims from the Kosovo conflict have been exhumed from the Rudnica mass grave in Serbia. Arsim Gërxhaliu, director of the Forensics Department at the Kosovo Ministry of Justice, told the paper that they will soon perform autopsies on the victims. He also said that it is not good to prejudge the number of victims that may be found in the mass grave. The paper notes that the mass grave is believed to contain the bodies of 250 Albanians executed by Serbian troops during the conflict.