Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
07PRISTINA668
2007-09-06 15:42:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Pristina
Cable title:  

KOSOVO: CENTRAL AND LOCAL ELECTIONS SET FOR

Tags:  PGOV PREL KV 
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PP RUEHDBU RUEHFL RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHROV RUEHSR
DE RUEHPS #0668/01 2491542
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 061542Z SEP 07
FM USOFFICE PRISTINA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7671
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK PRIORITY 1263
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC PRIORITY
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PRISTINA 000668 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EUR, EUR/SCE, DRL, INL, AND S/WCI, NSC FOR BRAUN,
USUN FOR DREW SCHUFLETOWSKI, USOSCE FOR STEVE STEGER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/06/2017
TAGS: PGOV PREL KV
SUBJECT: KOSOVO: CENTRAL AND LOCAL ELECTIONS SET FOR
NOVEMBER 17


Classified By: COM Tina Kaidanow for reasons 1.5 (b) and (d).

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PRISTINA 000668

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EUR, EUR/SCE, DRL, INL, AND S/WCI, NSC FOR BRAUN,
USUN FOR DREW SCHUFLETOWSKI, USOSCE FOR STEVE STEGER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/06/2017
TAGS: PGOV PREL KV
SUBJECT: KOSOVO: CENTRAL AND LOCAL ELECTIONS SET FOR
NOVEMBER 17


Classified By: COM Tina Kaidanow for reasons 1.5 (b) and (d).


1. (C) Summary. On August 31, UN SRSG Ruecker announced that
elections will be held in Kosovo on November 17. Three
ballots will be cast by voters for the central Assembly, the
Municipal Assemblies, and for the first time, direct election
of mayors. Additionally, Ruecker announced a five percent
threshold for ethnic Albanian parties to enter the Assembly
and the use of open candidate lists. Political parties have
until September 12 to file these lists. The OSCE mission in
Pristina has full responsibility for organizing the
elections. Despite arguments to delay elections until
Kosovo's final status is resolved, Ruecker decided to honor
the Unity Team request to hold elections this year by the
third week of November. Discussion has already begun as to
whether current President of Kosovo Fatmir Sejdiu can head
his LDK party list, and whether AAK leader Ramush Haradinaj,
currently on trial for war crimes in The Hague, can
participate at all, although UNMIK has stated that he can.
USOP, through implementing partners IFES and NDI, plans to
support the OSCE-led process through voter education and get
out the vote campaigns, and to mount its own observation
effort. It is unlikely that the Kosovo Serbs will
participate in significant numbers in any of the three
elections; to potentially affect this, we will need to weigh
in with Belgrade sooner rather than later. END SUMMARY.


2. (C) In an August 28 meeting with USOP, SRSG Ruecker and
PDSRSG Schook previewed UNMIK's plan to announce elections
that week and to designate November 17 as election day.
Ruecker reviewed the various arguments, pro and con, for
holding elections prior to status. Ultimately, he felt that
elections could no longer be held hostage to various
political interests, and, given the letter he had received
from the Unity Team August 15 requesting that elections be
held by the third week of November, he decided to honor that
request and move ahead. After receiving the support of the
Contact Group, Ruecker made his announcement on August 31,

setting September 12 as the deadline for parties to file
their candidate lists.

Nuts and Bolts
--------------


3. (C) Following up on his Executive Decision 2007/44 of
August 16 which authorized the Central Election Commission to
begin preparations for elections, Ruecker issued two new
regulations on August 30. Regulation 2007/25 amends
Regulation 2004/9 and determines the composition of the
Central Election Commission (CEC). The CEC will have 12
members. The President of Kosovo will nominate a
Commissioner who will act as Deputy Chairperson and will be
chosen from among the sitting judges of the Supreme Court.
Six Commissioners will be appointed by the SRSG based on
nominations received from the six largest political parties
represented in the Assembly. One Commissioner will come from
the Serb community and three will come from the other
minority communities. The OSCE ambassador in Kosovo (i.e,
the Deputy SRSG for Institution Building) will also be a
Commissioner and act as Chairperson.


4. (U) Regulation 2007/26 amends Regulation 2004/12 allowing
the SRSG to set and announce the date of the election
(November 17). It declares that candidate lists will be
"open lists," meaning that -- for the first time in Kosovo --
a voter can select the 10 candidates he or she prefers from
the list of the political party for which he votes. The
regulation specifies that all candidate lists must be
comprised of at least 30 percent women. Significantly, it
also sets a threshold of five percent of total valid votes
for an ethnic Albanian political party to enter the Assembly.
Twenty seats are reserved for minorities (ten Serb and ten
other minorities),in keeping with the Ahtisaari-envisioned
structure of the Assembly. The term in office for the Kosovo
Assembly will be four years.


5. (C) The regulation establishing the direct election of
mayors will be issued in the near future. It will likely set
the term in office at two years for both the mayor and the
Municipal Assembly for this election only, with subsequent
terms set at four years. The rationale for this is twofold:
to stagger elections such that, in future, municipal
elections and central elections are not held co-terminously;

PRISTINA 00000668 002 OF 003


and to encourage quicker implementation of the Ahtisaari
plan, which, once the relevant legislation is passed, will
require redrawing municipal boundaries and re-running
municipal elections to create new, Serb-majority
municipalities with corresponding local administrations.


6. (C) The OSCE mission has full responsibility for
organizing these elections. OSCE in Pristina has expressed
concern over the compressed preparation period and initially
suggested that elections be split into two, central and
municipal, in order to adequately prepare. Because OSCE is
running the elections, ODIHR (the election observations arm
of OSCE) will not be leading the election observation
mission. The Council of Europe has been invited to take on
this role. USOP and other internationals on the ground will
also field monitoring teams in November. (Comment: OSCE will
have its hands full to make these complicated elections, with
three ballots to cast and hundreds of candidates to consider,
understandable to the Kosovo voter. USOP, through USAID
implementers IFES and NDI, will pitch in by getting involved
in voter education and get out the vote campaigns.)

Top of the Ticket
--------------


7. (C) As parties are scrambling to pull their lists
together, they are putting their most well-known candidate at
the top. This creates difficulties for the ruling LDK party,
whose current leader is the President of Kosovo, Fatmir
Sejdiu. It is not clear whether Sejdiu can run for the
Assembly while remaining Kosovo's president, and what the
consequences would be if he wins a seat (which would be
almost guaranteed). The Central Elections Commission and the
OSCE, most likely, will have to make a final determination.


8. (C) UNMIK ruled on September 5 that Ramush Haradinaj,
head of the AAK party and currently on trial at The Hague for
war crimes, can participate in the elections and head the
AAK's list. According to the Kosovo Constitutional
Framework, "a candidate would be disqualified if serving a
prison term on a conviction by the ICTY or had been indicted
by the ICTY and did not appear before the same." This
decision has caused some consternation among Serbs and
reportedly also elicited unhappiness from the ICTY. In
another recent development, current Prime Minister and AAK
member Agim Ceku has stated publicly that he will not run in
these elections, though he has not ruled out the possibility
of accepting an office if offered one by whatever government
is formed post-elections (Kosovo's constitutional framework
does not require that ministers hold a seat in parliament).

Serb Participation
--------------


9. (C) Despite creative calculations by some suggesting that
Kosovar Serbs, given the 5 percent threshold, could gain
several additional seats in the Kosovo Assembly should their
turnout be high and Albanian turnout be low, it is unlikely
that Kosovo Serbs will participate in significant numbers,
particularly in central elections. In conversations with COM
and other USOP officers, Kosovo Serb leaders have indicated
they will take direction from Belgrade on whether or not to
participate, with the assumption on their part being they
will be told to stay away. There are some hints, however,
that given the go-ahead from Belgrade, local Serbs would be
willing to run in at least municipal elections, since they
fear that independent Serb candidates -- perhaps running in
tandem with or in coalition with Albanian parties -- could
sweep municipal seats in the event of a general Serb boycott
and set up competing municipal administrations.


10. (C) COMMENT: USOP supports SRSG Ruecker's decision to
move ahead on elections. Municipal elections have been
delayed for nearly a year already, and even with the
complicating factor of Kosovo's unresolved status, the
democratic process cannot be put on hold indefinitely. Nor
would Kosovo's opposition likely consent to remain part of a
unified negotiating team for status discussions if their
opportunity to gain power democratically were pushed off for
many more months. We will do our part to assist OSCE in
making these elections as transparent and comprehensible to
the Kosovo voter as possible, and we will hold Kosovo's
leaders to their pledge not to use the Ahtisaari package or

PRISTINA 00000668 003 OF 003


the final status process as a political football during the
campaign. We are fairly certain Kosovo Serbs will not
participate in these elections, especially at the central
level. However, if we want to make a pitch to Belgrade to
encourage Serb participation, and given the very tight
deadlines involved in party registration, we need to mobilize
this effort immediately. To be most effective, we recommend
it be a joint Contact Group effort. END COMMENT.
KAIDANOW