Serbian parties on mutual charges of threats, blackmail

The campaign for early parliamentary elections, which will be held in Kosovo on 6 October, will officially begin on 25 September and last 10 days. There are 25 political subjects, of which 4 are of the Serb community, coalition “Liria” with headquarters in Gracanica, the Independent Liberal Party, as well as the headquarters in Gracanica, the Party of Kosovo Serbs, headquartered in Leposaviq, as well as the Serb List, headquartered in northern Mitrovica, which has local power in the 10 Serb majority municipalities. The latter, in the past term of the legislature, has had 9 out of 10 seats guaranteed for MPs from the Serb community.

Although the election campaign has not yet been officially launched, the accusations -- first of all -- on the Serbian List, which Belgrade officially supports -- are numerous.

Coalition list manager “Liria” and candidate for prime minister Nenad Rassic tells Radio Free Europe that the goal of this coalition is for the Kosovo Serb people to return dignity and the right to decide on their own. However, he points out that conditions on the ground are abnormal and that no means to achieve power are being resolved. Hence, as he says, conditions for honest and correct choices have no basis. According to him, all Serbia's state mechanisms are used to influence the Serbian election body in Kosovo. As he says, this is not all new since the Serbian List has been on the scene, but which, according to him, “has already taken a step away from”.

Some people are fired. One of my associates was suspended Friday. Those who have been members of the election council have been invited by the manager, either employers, principal or chairman, to withdraw from those troops or pre-election activities. For more, at those levels, there are correctsomes for workers that they would not have to meet me or my associates and that in no way promote their rage or institutions. What is now happening will surely remain marked in the literature for faculties, the dictatorship, and the application of dictatorship. This is here on the ground, and it's probably not going to be anything better, but only worse”, Rassic said.

He added that this situation would force all opponents to engage, as he calls it, <x0legally” with politics, to work in the dark and work as a resistance movement in an occupied country. Rassic said he has addressed all Kosovo institutions, including the police, because in some cases they have reason to believe their lives are at stake. But, according to him, institutions are taking this situation lightly because they do not understand the depth and brutality of organs that are willing to do anything for political benefit.

Akleksandar Jablanovic, leader of the Party of Kosovo Serbs, tells Radio Free Europe that he is satisfied with the conditions for the campaign, which the Central Election Commission has set for all parties. But, according to him, the situation on the ground is detecting conditions very difficult to officially launch even the election campaign. The losses of jobs and threats to citizens, he says, have already been made.

These threats go so far that a lady, who is a candidate on the Kosovo Serb Party's list and is a worker in the Leposaviqi municipality, has been given the task of bringing the list of 15 safe votes for the Serbian List. Can you imagine that a candidate for MP in early elections for the Kosovo Assembly will be threatened and blackmailed with losing the job, because it needs for another party to bring 15 secure votes. Of course, those votes will not ensure and, of course, that threat will be denounced to police”, Jablanovic said.

He has added that similar cases of blackmail and threats have a lot to citizens who don't think like the Serbian List, which he says will invite workers into large or small groups, saying if they don't vote on this political subject, they and their children will have no future in this space.

From the Serbian List say their political opponents are fabricating. The deputy head of this political subject, Dalibor Jevtic, tells Radio Free Europe that unconventional fictions are cases when <x0) someone is sanctioned for some unknown cause and then connected with the Serbian List”. Furthermore, he accuses Slobodan Petrovic, leader of the Independent Liberal Party, of threats.

“Petrovic, who is a task adviser to the Kosovo Post for Minority Integration, has called a meeting at which he has threatened and competent organs have been announced. Serbian workers at the Kosovo Post have later been invited to disciplinary procedure. These facts we have also handed over to the EU supervisory mission. It's another thing to say and have evidence. So, we have a gentleman who is the director who has his party, is the director of the Post, who calls his employees and threatens them. This is a direct threat and blackmail”, Jevtic said.

But, Slobodan Petrovic, leader of the Independent Liberal Party, says all this is a lie. In a conversation with Radio Free Europe, he denies being a Kosovo Post worker but working for another company, Vala and that something like that did not happen.

They have, so far, told numerous lies. I don't work in the Post, this is another company. This has nothing to do with me, but this is not the first time and you media have convinced several times that they lie to”, Petrovic said.

He has added that his party is now appealing for weeks not to repeat the state of the 2017 elections, when, according to him, hundreds of people have lost their jobs or social income.

As he noted, through a media conference, examples have been made white when people have lost their jobs because they or one of their families are on his political subject list and that the case has been handed over to the prosecutor from which he expects to do his job. All this situation, according to him, has to do with fears of the Serbian List, which he said is losing the support of the Serb community in Kosovo every day.

From the EU monitoring mission, which has arrived in Kosovo, have declared that these elections “are an excellent case for actors in Kosovo to show commitment to democracy by implementing a reliable comprehensive process of”. Also, this mission has added that after early elections in 2017, it has submitted 26 recommendations, most of which have not been accepted. At the time, this mission had stressed that in areas where Serb populations live, cases of obstruction, intimidation and violence directed at voters have been recorded, but also against candidates.