Sprska promises: Homes for New Couples, Double - Pay Jobs

Many Serbian List officials have jobs in Kosovo's systems, but also Serbia's, so they receive double salaries.

Following the recent local elections in 2017, the European Union's observer mission confirmed cases of obstruction, rowing and violence directed at voters and other Serbian parties' candidates, in areas where Serb populations live.

Regular local elections in Kosovo will be held on Sunday, October 17th.

The mayoral candidate in the Northern Mitrovica municipality is Milan Radojevic, who is currently in that position, but also in the function of the director of the Pension and Limited Access Fund, the institution at the opposite end of Serbia's system.

Allnexandar Spiric, candidate for adviser in the Northern Mitrovica municipality, said at the pre-election rally on October 11th that local authorities will create better conditions for young married couples in the coming period. He stressed that, so far, seven residential units have been built for them and that “will soon be announced competition”.

In the next few days, we will start with building two other buildings, and this shows the determination of all to fight together and in harmony, as well as to show unity in the upcoming” elections, Spiric said.

The competition was announced only a few hours later. Mitrovica's so-called interim customs, operating according to Serbia's system, declared this competition and is considered a parallel institution by Kosovo authorities. At the head of this organ is exactly Allexander Spiric.

These residential units in northern Mitrovica, which is one of four majority Serb municipalities in northern Kosovo, have been built with funds from the government's budget of Serbia.

At the pre-election rally in northern Mitrovica, as well as on October 11th, the deputy head of the Serbian List and Kosovo Parliament deputy Igor Simes said the <x0->unity of the Serbian people is expressed through the Serbian List”.

“Renovation and reconstruction of these projects were realised in co-operation with Minister Goran Rakiq (head of the Serbian List and Minister for Kthim and Community in the Government of Kosovo). It is the only minister offering support to the Serbian municipalities in Kosovo, and it is important to emphasise”, S individual said.

Two days later, on 13 October, the competition for distribution of 35 residential units was announced by the interim body of the Zvecan municipality, which works in Serbia's system and is run by Ivan Todosijevic. Todosijevic is an MP in the Kosovo Assembly.

The current chairman of the Zvecan municipality is Vucinina Jankoviq, who is also a member of the interim municipal body in the Serbian system, and the mayoral candidate is Dragisa Milovovic, who is currently deputy director of the Clinical Hospital Centre in Northern Mitrovica.

Conservations have also been announced in the Gracanica municipality, as well as the Serb-run municipality, in the vicinity of Pristina.

Although residence buildings for newly married couples, for those belonging to the endangered social category and for the displaced ended at about the end of 2019, local authorities in Gracanica, led by Srdjan Popovic of the Serbian List, on October 1, 2021, declared the “public call for housing”.

The Zvecan municipality, on 12 October, has announced competition for the admission of 11 nurses and medical technicians.

Health institutions in Kosovo's heavily inhabited Serb environments operate according to Serbia's system, and those who take the workplace through Kosovo's municipalities are employed in Serbian institutions, while wages are obtained from the Kosovo Government budget.

Even the candidate for the mayor of Gracanica municipality, Lilana Shubariq from the Serbian List, at the October 6th Pre-election rally, also announced the opening of new jobs, within the “plan for survival and youth stance”.

The new competitions are now in effect, which also offer new jobs. In addition to health systems, in addition to health workers, people of other profiles were accepted,”, Shubaric said.

Unlike past years, this time Serbian List candidates have competition in almost all municipalities. Their campaign is focused mainly on irregularities, which they claim are happening.

Independent candidate for the head of the Gracanica municipality, Branimir Stojanovic, in his campaign, which he led mainly through social networks, spoke of the need to remove “double salaries”.

The first thing and the most important thing is to clear the scores with double income. I have never personally received double pay, but others have. This is something that is eroded our people”, Stojanovic said.

He is a former member of the Serbian List, and within it was elected Kosovo's deputy prime minister in 2014.

However, Stojanovic decided that in local elections this time he would run as independent for the mayor of the Gracanica municipality, because he was unhappy with the Serbian List's decision to nominate Lilana Shubarij for mayor of this municipality.

He also confirmed that Radomir Lalban, judge at the Constitutional Court of Kosovo, is interfering with the Serbian List policy, which Serbia, on the other hand, is looking for for to suffer prison sentences.

In Serbia in 2011, Laban was sentenced to six years in prison for accepting and bribery.

Meanwhile, Klokot municipality chairman Sasa Mirkovovic has been talking about the pressures and threats allegedly taking his supporters some days. He did not report these claims to the authorities, but decided to share them with the public through social networks.

In one of his posts in his Facebook account, he said he received a large number of calls, through which they informed him and complained that several “certain fellow citizens were having their salaries removed”.

You people, thank you for choosing me as your representative. Just go ahead and be brave!

In a statement to Radio Free Europe, he said that “some person is trying to intimidate the citizens of Kllokoti” so as not to give him support in the local elections.

I've had certain calls from some of our citizens who have had losses regarding their personal income. In all, their salaries have been removed. But, they're brave people and they'll stay... the important thing is that people have noticed the real situation on the ground and that changes are necessary”, Mirkovic said.

Miodrag Milicevic, executive director of the non-governmental organisation active by Northern Mitrovica, considers there will be no surprise in the upcoming local elections, when it comes to Serb-run municipalities.

It emphasises in every election “we have an identical situation that repeats and is the use of state resources for pre-election purposes”.

There are various housing divisions and various other benefits that may significantly influence the outcome of the elections. I am sure that even in this case, there will be no change in the previous elections. Even secularists know this isn't an equal race, and you can't do what here. So we can't talk about equality of candidates”, Millichevic said.

Dusan Janjic, from the Forum for Ethnic Relations in Belgrade, considers that in Serb-run residential environments in Kosovo, it has already been decided who will be at the helm of local government in the next four years, or whether these municipalities will be back in the hands of the Serbian List.

According to his assessment, among Serbs in Kosovo, the one-party system, which he says is a very bad “and therefore has no hope for”.

He recalls incidents that took place in 2013 in northern Kosovo, when local elections in that region were held for the first time under the Kosovo system. At the time, in northern Mitrovica, the vote was cancelled due to irregularities.

Janiq considers the incidents were deliberately caused at the time, so that Olliver Ivanovic, leader of the civic initiative Freedom, Democracy and Justice, would not win.

“They entered and broke about 20 boxes, while the international community quickly stopped counting in all municipalities in the north. So from the beginning, we do not have regular local or parliamentary elections in northern Kosovo. And these present will be the same as the first. This is not good”, Janjaq estimates.

Olliver Ivanovic was killed in January 2018, just months after the local elections in Kosovo, in which he was the bearer of the “Liri, Democracy, Justice Olliver Ivanovic” list.

During the pre-election campaign for those local elections, which were held in November 2017, four candidates withdrew from his list due to intimidation, meanwhile Ivanovics personally was burned in northern Mitrovica.

At the time, with 1,051 votes, he won an Asamblist seat in the Communist Assembly in northern Mitrovica.

In November 2013, Ivanovic was the candidate for mayor of North Mitrovica and then again in early 2014, because elections for that municipality were repeated.

On the same day (January 16th), when Olliver Ivanovic was killed, but only four years ago (2014) in northern Mitrovica was killed Dimitrije Janicijevic, who in the 2013 local elections, participated in the election as a candidate of the Independent Liberal Party. Even this murder did not get a judicial epilogue.

They were the first local elections to be organised according to the Kosovo system in the four Serb majority municipalities in northern Kosovo.

Prepare: Bekim Bislim