Kosovo elections: The wider significance

The significance of the vote goes beyond the local councils

By regional analyst Tim Judah

Some 901,000 Kosovo residents will be eligible to vote in the region's municipal elections on Saturday.

The poll is for local councils but the significance of the vote will stretch far beyond Kosovo's town halls.

In fact, Kosovo's Albanians will be electing leaders who are promising to guide the territory - which is legally still part of Yugoslavia - to independence.

Hashim Thaci is a former guerilla leader

The poll is the first time Kosovars will have voted since the end of the war in June 1999.

Since then Kosovo has been run by a United Nations administration (Unmik) and its security provided by troops from K-For, the Nato-led peacekeeping force.

Although officially the voters will select men and women to run their municipal services, the real significance of the vote is twofold.

• Firstly it will show which of Kosovo's political leaders now commands real support.
• Secondly, the vote is a major step towards creating institutions for the province.

Next year, Kosovo will vote for an assembly and government.

But even then the final say on any important decisions will lie with the head of the UN administration.

Contenders

Although there are 21 parties and coalitions running for election, there are really only three major players.

• Rugova

  The first is the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) run by the 56-year-old pacifist, Ibrahim Rugova.

  After former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic abolished Kosovo's autonomy in 1989 Mr Rugova emerged to lead a campaign of passive resistance.

  
  

  Mr Rugova could emerge the strongest
  

  But by the end of the 1990s it was clear that his policy of gaining independence from Serbia by peaceful means was not working.

  He lost ground to hardliners and those prepared to lead a war of liberation.

• Thaci

  Hashim Thaci, now 32-years-old, was one of those hardiners.

  A founding member of the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), Thaci was eventually to emerge as head of its political directorate and to lead the Albanian delegation in abortive peace talks at Rambouillet in France in February 1999.

  Thaci is now head of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK).

  
  

  Mr Haradinaj's stronghold is in the west
  

• Haradinaj

  The second major party to emerge from the former KLA is the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) led by Ramush Haradinaj, a charismatic, 32-year-old, former guerrilla leader.

  His support lies mainly in his old command area in the west, but the AAK may well win swing council seats across the province.

Policies

To judge by the campaign, this is a most unusual election.

None of the parties has any real policies and certainly no ideas about running local government.

To a great extent, this is a poll about the past, about who has done more to advance the cause of independence over the last decade.

Although Mr Rugova's policy of passive resistance failed, he may emerge as the strongest on Saturday.

This may have less to do with any lingering respect for him, and more to do with widespread anger about the alleged criminal links of the former KLA men.

Serb boycott

Kosovo's Serbs will not be voting in this election.

Some 170,000 Serbs and members of other minorities have fled since June 1999.

The 100,000 estimated to remain live in the area of Mitrovica in the north or in K-For-guarded enclaves scattered across Kosovo.

In part their boycott was prompted by the refusal of the regime of Slobodan Milosevic to co-operate in any significant manner with Unmik.

But Serbs will still be represented in the future councils.

Serbian council members will be selected by Unmik, so long as they are deemed not to oppose the aims of Security Council Resolution 1244 which established the UN administration.

The recent changes in Belgrade have shocked Kosovo's Albanian leaders, who are horrified by the speed with which Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica has been embraced by the international community.

Some fear that if the Kosovo Albanians find their path to independence blocked, many former guerrillas will take up arms once again.

Tim Judah is the author of Kosovo: War & Revenge, published by Yale University Press.