The Serbian list becomes as if it is reshaping: Bie Goran Rakic, new chairman selected

Ellek is the task director of the Clinical Hospital Centre in Northern Mitrovica.

He was elected during an open vote at the Serbian List Assembly session held Tuesday in North Mitrovica, where the Serbian List also chose the new chairmanship. The leader of the Serbian List so far was Goran Rakiq.

The Serbian list is the largest Serb party in Kosovo, which has Belgrade's support.

These changes to party leadership are taking place after Events in Banjska Near Zvecan in northern Kosovo on September 24th, when an armed Serb group attacked Kosovo police and killed Sergeant Africa Bulnjak. Three Serb attackers were also killed in the subsequent shootout.

Five days later, then Serbian List Deputy Chairman Milan Radojic took responsibility for the attack and resigned from that position. He is being investigated, both in Kosovo and Serbia.

These changes follow the willingness of the Serbian List, expressed on 13 October, to participate in the elections under the organisation of Kosovo institutions in municipalities in the north, after boycotting them in April 2023. At the time, in four municipalities in the north, northern Mitrovica, Zubin Potok, Zvecan and Leposaviq were elected Albanian mayors.

The April elections were held following the collective withdrawal of Serbian officials from local and central institutions in November 2022, due to disappointments with a Kosovo Government decision dealing with reregistering Serbian illegal license plates to those Kosovo RKS-run Republic.

Miodrag Marinkoviq from the nongovernmental organisation Centre for Affirmation Social Action, believes that new persons in the Serbian List will not say “practiceally anything” and believes this party will certainly remain influential because of Belgrade's support.

This we can see from the government of the Serbian Progressive Party in Serbia, in which leading people in the party are replaced because they are discredited by a host of relatives. I think this is happening to the Serbian List. It's just an attempt at respiration, but it's not a substantial change of”, he says.

Even the Serbian politician from Gracanica, Branimir Stojanovic, believes any changes within the Serbian List will be formal, will otherwise not bring substantial “changes”.

So it's important that our people understand that it's enough with this formalization... I believe that our people will appreciate very well that all the changes that are going to happen, are simply the declaration of a corrupt mechanism, which is hard to change”, Stojanovic said in a statement to REL.

Stojanovic and political activist from northern Kosovo, Millija Bisevac, are forming a new party that will be “alnative of the Serbian List”.

It is about the Serbian People's Movement party, which, according to Stojanovic, will act and will represent the interests of Serbs in all Serb-run majority facilities in Kosovo”.