Voters Unexistenceful of the Valley

Teuta Fazliu, a large part of her life, has spent her home town of Bujanoc of Serbia. In recent years she has moved to Kosovo, but her family still lives on family property. However, Teuta, Serbian authorities in 2020, repeated the address.

This enabled her to vote in the parliamentary and presidential elections that took place Sunday, April 3rd in Serbia.

I entered the state voter list yesterday [day 3 April] to see if I still exist on the voter list. I wasn't, and I didn't make any way for Bujanoc since I was with little children, which means I didn't enjoy the right to vote”, Fazliu says.

She says she constantly goes to the hometown of Bujanoc, but that fact, according to her, has not been enough for Serbian authorities not to scan her address.

From the Albanian National Council, the self-government institution of the Albanian community in Serbia, have said earlier about Radio Free Europe that by the end of last year, about 6,000 citizens of Presevo municipalities, Medvedja and Bujanoc, to whom addresses were scheduled.

Bujanovac, along with Presevo and Medvedja, constitute what is known as the Presevo Valley inhabited by Albanians in southern Serbia.

Helsinki's Committee for Human Rights in Serbia in 2021 said Serbia, in order to lower as much as possible the number of Albanians living south of the state, is conducting a process called “disinstalling Albanian residents” living outside Serbia, whether in Western Europe or in Kosovo.

This measure, essentially, is a form of ethnic cleansing through administrative means”, the Helsinki Committee report says.

When the permanent residence address is opened and removed from the motherbook in Serbia, that person virtually ceases to exist. They cannot renew ID or expired passport, register cars, have access to health care or social services, buy or sell property, or vote in local or general elections”, the report says.

Official Belgrade, in general, has not commented on the question of passive display of addresses. But, in an interview for Radio Free Europe in February 2021, Minister of State Administration and Local Self-Government in Serbia's Government Marija Obradovic, has spoken of a lack of voting rights, saying that it happens when it happens from field inspections of Serbian Interior Ministry officials, it is found that the residence of persons is not in the address they have submitted.

For Teuta Fazliu, the launching of her address in Serbia and leaving the voter list is a violation of human rights.

“... An ethnic cleansing has started in the Presevo Valley, Bujanoc and Medvedja, that is, a modernised ethnic administrative cleansing”, Fazliu says.

International Alarm

Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani expressed concern about not participating thousands of Presevo Valley Albanians in Serbia's presidential and parliamentary elections.

On Monday, April 4th, speaking at a media conference on the occasion of an anniversary of assuming office of president Osmani, Osmani said Serbia continues not to change its 90s mentality.

Serbia has banned Albanians in Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanoc, some 6 thousand of them according to reports, to exploit their vote rights and according to the Helsinki Committee through this they are performing ethnic cleansing through administrative means”, Osmani said.

Even Albanian politicians in the Presevo Valley have for years raised concerns that Serbia has started to fulfil the addresses of Albanians living in three southern municipalities, with the aim of changing the ethnic structure of these municipalities.

Arber Pajaziti, leader of the Alliance for Change party in Bujanoc, says that in this town only during 2021, the addresses of over 700 Albanians have been opened.

“The main goal of noting addresses is demographic change in the municipality of Bujanoc and Presevo, because in Medvedja they have only done the job. The main goal is to reduce the number of Albanians, so ethnic cleansing through law”, Pajaziti says.

Belgzim Kamberi from the Commission for Human Rights in Presevo says Serbian authorities are continuing to carry out selective display of addresses.

The obvious thing is that even these elections showed that the move has been largely ethnic and selective, so it has especially hit Albanians, whether it be in Medvedja or Bujanoc, but has generally affected the contraction of the Albanian voter body”, Kamberi said.

Has not the passive display affected voters?

Albanian parties have competed in Serbia's two-list parliamentary elections: The coalition of the United Albanians and the Albanian Democratic Alternative with a total of 20 candidates. According to preliminary results, a mandate in Serbia's Parliament has won only Shaip Kamber's Coalition of United Albanians.

Because of political differences, they say they have failed to agree on a common list, just as in the 2020 elections, when the Albanians of the Valley have united for the first time and won three seats in Serbia's Assembly.

Arber Pajaziti, leader of the Alternative Party for Change in Bujanoc, says the equipment of addresses has not had a major impact on the Albanian appearance in the vote, as according to him, interest has been very low.

The participation of two-listed Albanians, as well as the removal of young people from this region, according to him, has made the choices unattact for Albanians in Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanoc.

These two parties have received nearly 13 thousand votes in total.

In Serbia it is not known exactly how many Albanians live, as they had boycotted the census made in 2011.

On the basis of an assessment by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSBE), made in 2015, there were said to be about 70 thousand Albanian residents in Presevo, Bujanoc and Medvedja.

Some 20,000 Albanians reportedly have migrated to Kosovo for various reasons.