Election-free parties, 1280 candidates and over 2 million voters all you need to know about the February 9th elections.

On Monday, political subjects in Kosovo are equipped with numbers, with which they will compete in the regular parliamentary elections on February 9th, as the Central Election Commission has organised the casting of lots for the rankings in the ballot. The numbers of political subjects on ballot papers range from 111 to 138.

For these elections, 28 political subjects have been certified, with 1,280 candidates.

On the ballot, citizens will be able to choose a political subject and up to ten candidates for MPs. This is a change after the new Law is adopted for elections. In the past, citizens have had the opportunity to elect up to five candidates.

Each certified party may have as many as 110 candidates on the election list.

The new composition of the 120-seat Assembly will be selected from these lists, and MPs later choose the new Government. The current government in Kosovo is led by Albin Kurti, leader of the Vetevendosje Movement.

These are the CEC's recent preparations for the elections, as the election campaign begins on Saturday, January 11th and for a month, parties and candidates will try to persuade voters to choose them.

In contrast to past elections, when election silence began one day before the polls, with legal changes this year, it will now begin a minute before the opening of polling stations at 7: 00 a.m. and will last until their closure, at 7: 00 p.m. on February 9. So the electoral silence will only last for 12 hours of voting.

These will be the first fair elections Kosovo has held since its 2008 declaration of independence. So far, a number of early elections have been held in the country.

What's the number of voters?

Following the completion of voter registration abroad, the CEC indicated that the number of voters for the February 9th elections would be 2 million and 75 thousand and 868 voters inside and outside Kosovo.

Voters abroad, in addition to voting by mail, for the first time could vote in 17 embassies and 15 consulates in 19 different states of the world.

Posting from abroad starts on January 9th. According to the CEC, 104,924 registered for voting abroad. Of them, 20.399 were registered for physical voting in any of the diplomatic representations, others for mail voting.

As before, this time too is expected to soon be known the ranking of parties in elections, and real-time citizens will be able to see on the CEC site the preliminary results.

This is because, of all the CEC polling, votes are electronically sent to parties and candidates and are then charged to the system.

However, these results do not include conditional votes, votes from the outside, and votes of eligible voters, which are later counted at the Counting and Results Centre (QNR).

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Eugen Cakoli of the Kosovo Democratic Institute tells Free Europe Radio that he believes the election campaign will be more intense, as parties will have more time to approach potential voters with their platforms.

In a conversation with Radio Free Europe, Cakoli said the party campaign has been launched almost four months since the elections were announced. According to him, opposition parties have only published the programmes and conveyed their messages, unlike the ruling party, which, according to him, has so far spoken only about the part of implementing current governance.

“On the other hand has not missed even the traditional forms of campaigning, door-to-door meetings and especially in the Oda, which are obviously more expressed in rural areas, and especially from parties, let's say more traditional, including here, the LDK, The PDK and the AAK coalition with the Initiative and other parties”, Calcol says as regards the period before the official campaign.

Meanwhile, the official campaign period, Cakoli, says it expects it to be a review of all this political activity of parties.

“In a qualitative and conservative sense, I expect that the dynamics of the campaign can intensify and parties can move towards larger gatherings across public spaces, which we are seeing even in recent days. But, in terms of speeches and political messages, I believe it will be to some extent the same, although I expect that there will be a toughness of tone and discourse between political parties. The closer we are to election processes, this is one of the main features of the” campaign, he says.

Speaking of concerns about this election campaign, Cacol says they remain the same as in the past, that is, the risk of misuse of public resources at the central or municipal level, of civil servants, but other resources like official cars.

“On the other hand, a problem with election campaigns in Kosovo is the failure of sufficient access to women candidates and disabled persons and other marginalised groups, where political parties would have to work harder. The fact that parties are organising meetings in Oda is clear indicator that there is no sufficient and adequate context of space for women candidates”, he says.

By law, 30 percent of the election list must be with women candidate Deputy.

Cakolli says it would be good to have a TV confrontation with candidates for prime minister in this campaign as well, but says that based on the past, this is unlikely to happen since the acting prime minister is the one who refuses to face debate.

However, he sees positive development in terms of programmes the parties present to the citizens.

“Dinamics, at least from the last two parties of elections, show that due to increased civic demand, political parties are taking care to have as well-designed promises and presented in concrete steps that constitute a positive” development, he says.

Serbian List Certificate Problem

During preparations for the February 9th elections, one topic produces legal battle: the Certificate of the Serbian List.

That, as on December 23rd, representatives of the Vetevendosje Movement at the Central Election Commission voted against the Certificate of the Serbian List. Representatives of other parties abstained during the vote.

The Serbian list is the main party of Serbs in Kosovo enjoying Belgrade's support. This party later complained to the Electoral Panel for Ances and Parashtres.

PZAP gave the Serbian List the right, not finding any violations of this party that would constitute the basis for non-qualify and ordered the CEC to cerfiscate this subject.

The Vetevendosje movement then addressed the Supreme Court for PZAP's decision. However, the complaint was dropped.

But this did not end here, after the Vetevendosje Movement on January 2nd returned to him The PZAP seeking to annul the CEC's decision on certificate, saying the decision was made on behalf of the CEC, but without the approval of members of this commission organising the elections.

Kurti's party has argued that the Serbian List does not recognise Kosovo's citizenship.

The Vetevendosje movement has again complained about the Serbian List, as this party was included in the lot for selection of the number it will compete with in the elections.

Brian Sa God The LVV said that this CEC violated the law, as PZAP has not yet made a decision on the complaint concerning the Serbian List's certificate. /Radio Free Europe/