Parties Pledge They Won't Race With People in Problems With Law

Civil society as well as international representatives from Quint countries have called on all participating subjects in the election to ensure that on their lists of MPs there are no names of incriminating persons or having open files in the courts.

Democratic Party of Kosovo officials (PDK) told Radio Free Europe that the PDK list would be, as it said, clean, without persons who might have had problems with the law.

Vorim Joshi from election headquarters The PDK told Radio Free Europe that the chairman of this political party, Kadri Wessel, would not allow figures or persons in its structures that had problems with the law.

“Chairman Veselin [Cade Veselin] has taken a stand, along with party structures, that no person who has a problem with the law is on the list of this party, and also not to take executive positions in the future government”, said Yoshi.

According to Djoshi, the Democratic Party of Kosovo is the first party in the country to bring standards in that direction.

Even in the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), they say that this week they will start work on drafting the electoral list with potential parliamentary candidates for extraordinary parliamentary elections on October 6th.

Besian Mustafa, a media official, said that in the LDK there are principles regarding who should be the candidate for MP.

This has been and will remain the principle of the Democratic League of Kosovo, namely, that on the parliamentary lists, in those 110 possible MPs, there will be no people who have been faced in the past on charges or with formal charges of crime or corruption. So these are the basic principles of the LDK, which is offered to citizens to have people with clean legal background”, Mustafa said.

On this issue, even the political subject Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) has formed a commission that has begun to function, for selecting persons who will be potential candidates for MPs. Smajl Latifi chairman of the commission, named “Ethik”, said the party's ethical codes will be respected and there will be no names for MPs who do not deserve it or who have problems with the law.

“We have a commission and I am chairman of the commission and we will make our contribution that people who are in conflict with the law, but conflict to deal with, conflict with the law and that have problems..., which are condemned, we will make sure to make sure that we are in accordance with Law”, Latifi said.

In addition to MPs' candidacys, which in the past have not been cleared of names of persons wanted by law and justice, problems with the law also had the ministers of the past Kosovo government.

Of the total 22 ministers there were in the past Government, six are on charges. Misuse of official duty, possession of weapons and illegal employment are some of the charges weighing on former ministers.

In addition to government officials, according to the Kosovo Institute for Justice, it has proved to be more than 20 Kosovo Assembly deputies, from the sixth legislature, who had open materials to the prosecution and courts for various criminal acts.

Arlind Manjuka from the political subject Movement Vetevendosje, said their subject has always had lists for elections and pure candidates, according to him, no problem with the law or the actacus established.

We as Vetevendosje Movement have competed with clean lists. We are believing that this much issue is problematic for other subjects, since this has never been a concern for Vetevendosje”, he said.

The Vetevendosje movement in the past had persons who had charges of protests and tear gas throwing in the Kosovo Assembly and abroad. But, Manjuka says those actions have been in the context of political protests for which they have held full responsibility.

Quint member states have called on Kosovo citizens not to vote on crime-related persons, and for whom there are doubts about corruption.

The United States, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, which have said they expect from all political parties to create a fair environment for early elections to be held in Kosovo on 6 October.

In their joint statement, it has also been said that Kosovo needs rule of law, so candidates must not have a criminal past, in order to fight corruption and organised crime.

Under commitments to empower rule of order and law, Kosovo's Assembly has adopted Kosovo's new Criminal Code, with which stricter penalties have been envisioned for abusers of public money.

Early parliamentary elections are the result of Ramush Haradinaj's resignation from the position of Kosovo prime minister in July of this year. His resignation had followed an invitation by the Kosovo Special Court with headquarters in The Hague, where Haradinaj was invited to interview in the quality of war crimes suspect.