Still no party has applied for elections in the north, CEC on hold

Days ago, the country's president, Hashim Thaci, announced the 19 May date of holding extraordinary elections in northern Mitrovica, Leposavic, Zvecan and Zubin Potok.

The announcement of extraordinary elections came after the resignation they gave, in late November of 2018, the mayors of the four northern municipalities, in protest of the Kosovo Government's decision to impose a 100% tax on goods coming from Serbia and Bosnia's Hercegovaina.

Now the Central Election Commission is making preparations under the operational plan approved by the commission for holding elections in the four Serb majority municipalities.

CEC spokesman Valmir Elez says of Kosova Prees, that since the start of the application deadline on April 9th, no one has so far filed for voter participation.

I can confirm that there has not been any political subject that has submitted the application to be certified for participation in this election by these moments. Of course, we wait until the end of this deadline, which is April 18th at 24:00 to accept applications from political subjects”, he said.

It explains that the application deadline has started since April 9th and will close on April 18th.

The deadline for applying political subjects to be certified for participation in the elections in these municipalities has begun since April 9th. This deadline will be completed by April 18th, we will until then expect the applications of political subjects which want to participate in any of these municipalities or in all municipalities. The political parties' office will review all applications, which will be submitted to this office and then present to the Central Election Commission the recommendation for certificateification or failure of any political subject applying”, he said.

While the deadline for submitting the request to be accredited as observers in this election began 9 April and will be completed 12 May, and only accredited observers will be able to monitor this election process.

According to Elez, so far there has been no problem in organising this election process.

He says that for the CEC monitoring an election process, it is essential, as they consider it this way affects increasing the credibility of citizens and other shareholders in the election process.

Thaci's decision to elections in the north has also welcomed chief executive Ramush Haradinaj.

The prime minister has invited political subjects in Kosovo to be part of the race.

Meanwhile, it has so far been reported that the Serbian political subject List Serbia will participate in the extraordinary May 19th local elections in northern Kosovo.

We remember that the CEC has even previously organised elections in these municipalities, the last were local elections in October 2017.