OSCE COMMITTED TO MAKING KOSOVO ELECTIONS HAPPEN

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 USOSCE 000353

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

DPT FOR EUR, EUR/SCE, DRL, INL AND S/WCI, NSC FOR BRAUN,
USUN FOR DREW SCHUFLETOWSKI

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: OSCE PGOV PREL KV
SUBJECT: OSCE COMMITTED TO MAKING KOSOVO ELECTIONS HAPPEN
ON SCHEDULE BUT WORRIES REMAIN

REF: PRISTINA 000668

Summary:
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1. (SBU) The OSCE Mission in Kosovo (OMiK) says it is fully
committed to doing its part to ensure that the November 17
local and central elections come off successfully and on
schedule. Nonetheless, key OMiK officials are worried that
they may not be able to overcome a number of logistical
hurdles, including the need to outsource ballot printing, in
the two months remaining before the elections. OMiK has
given a lukewarm response to the IOM's offer to help organize
and extend the vote to the Kosovan diaspora. End Summary.

OMIK's Big Worry: Printing and Distributing Ballots
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2. (SBU) Well-placed sources within OMiK paint a picture of
an OSCE field mission pulling on all oars to put in place all
the conditions necessary for free, fair, and successful
municipal and central elections on November 17. While key
OMiK staff members say the mission is fully committed to
fulfilling their responsibilities, they confess to being
frustrated and worried that the Mission may not be able to
overcome certain logistical and technical hurdles outside of
its control in the two months remaining before the elections.


3. (SBU) OMiK's principle worry appears to be getting the
ballots printed and distributed throughout Kosovo on time.
While the deadline for submitting candidate lists expired on
September 12, finalizing the ballots, two OMiK sources said,
may not be possible for nearly another month given the
complexity of sorting through, vetting, and ordering the
lists for three separate polls (parliamentary, municipal, and
mayoral) and the requirement to let the appeals process run
its legally-mandated course. Once the ballots have been
finalized, the mission will have to send them outside of
Kosovo to be printed since there is no local printing
facility capable of producing the ballots with the necessary
security features to prevent fraud. Estimates for printing
the ballots have ranged from 21 to 45 days, and none of the
printing facilities that OMiK has approached will give the
Mission a guarantee that they can deliver the ballots on
time. Once the ballots are delivered to Kosovo, OMiK claims
at least three days will be necessary to distribute the
ballots in a controlled manner to all the polling stations
throughout Kosovo.

IOM Proposes Helping with Diaspora Vote . . .
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4. (SBU) Peter Von Bethlenfalvy, the IOM's mission director
in Vienna, met with USOSCE DCM Kyle Scott on September 11 to
ask U.S. government support in enlisting the IOM to organize
voting outside of Kosovo for the Kosovan diaspora. Von
Bethlenfalvy estimated that there were between 300-400
thousand Kosovans of voting age currently living outside of
Kosovo, with sizable expatriate populations in Germany,
Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Sweden, Slovenia, and the
U.S., and argued that it would be unfair for the
international community to exclude such a significant voting
block from participating in the elections.


5. (SBU) He expressed confidence that the IOM has the
expertise, ability, and time to organize polling for the
expatriate population, as it has done in past elections in
Kosovo, but so far lacked an invitation from the OSCE to do
so. Specifically, Von Bethlenfalvy claimed the IOM could
register expatriate voters, check and confirm their identity,
establish voting locations, conduct voter outreach and
education, and ensure the security and integrity of the vote
abroad. Doing so, he admitted, would not come cheap -- he
estimated that the IOM would need around 2 million euros to
organize elections outside of the country. He added that he
had passed IOM's proposal informally with OSCE Secretary
General Marc Perrin de Brichambaut and ODIHR Director
Christian Strohal, but since neither had given him the
expectation that an invitation would be forthcoming, he had
decided to bring the issue to our attention directly.

. . . but OMiK's Lukewarm to IOM's Offer

USOSCE 00000353 002 OF 002


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6. (SBU) USOSCE has passed IOM's proposal to our contacts in
both the OSCE Secretariat in Vienna and in the field mission
but we sense that both may regard the initiative at this late
date as difficult to actualize and not worth the effort. One
particularly well-placed source within OMiK questioned
whether organizing voting for the diaspora was really worth
the time, effort, and money given the relatively meager
participation of the expatriate community in previous
elections.


7. (U) Background: To date, OMiK has organized and supervised
four elections in Kosovo: at the municipal level in 2000 and
2002, and at the central level in 2001 and 2004. While
elections are a reserved responsibility of UNMiK delegated to
the OSCE, the Mission has progressively transferred
responsibility for the administration of the election to
local election institutions. OMiK Head of Mission Werner
Wnendt, however, continues to chair the Central Elections
Commission, and remains responsible for monitoring the
preparation and conduct of the elections and for intervening
as necessary to prevent or remedy any potential misconduct or
deviation from electoral rules. For this reason, as
explained in ref, ODIHR will not be leading the election
monitoring mission.

Comment:
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8. (SBU) It is no secret that both OSCE Secretary General de
Brichambaut and OMiK Head of Mission Werner Wnendt regret
that the field mission was only given two-and-a-half months
to help organize these elections rather than the full four
months they said were necessary to prepare adequately.
USOSCE defers to our colleagues in USOP who are closer to the
problem, but from our vantage point in Vienna we believe that
both the OSCE Secretariat in Vienna and the field mission in
Kosovo, despite their belly-aching, do not want to let the
international community down and are expending maximum effort
to prepare Kosovo to hold elections on November 17 as
scheduled. We also defer to Washington and Pristina on
whether an IOM role in the elections at this late day is
worth pursuing, and are prepared to push the OSCE from Vienna
if the answer is yes.
SCOTT