"Serbs to use Serbian documents in Kosovo elections"

Source: B92, Tanjug

BELGRADE -- Prime Minister Ivica Dačić has stated that Serbs will be able to vote and to run for office in the elections in Kosovo with Serbian documents.

(Beta, file)

Dačić told B92 on Sunday that in the continuation of the Belgrade-Priština dialogue scheduled for July 24 in Brussels the two sides will discuss whether the parties which are participating in the elections will have to register in Priština.
“The parties do not intend to participate individually, and this will be discussed among them. If a uniform Serb list is made, there will be no need for each party to stand the elections on its own,” the prime minister said.

Asked whether this means that the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) that he is leading will not participate in the elections in Kosovo and Metohija, Dačić said that he thinks that "a uniform Serb list should be made."

“We are yet to discuss this, not all questions have been solved, but it is in our interest that Serbs make their community legitimate and form it after the elections as that will be the first internationally recognized way of fulfillment of the Serb interests,” Dačić said.

"Registration in Kosovo is required to run in elections"

Edita Tahiri has said that parties registered in Serbia will not be able to run in the municipal elections in Kosovo unless they register with Kosovo's central election commission.

Tahiri, who is a deputy prime minister in the government in Priština and heads its team in the talks with Belgrade, told the Albanian-language daily Koha Ditore that parties had to be registered with Kosovo's central election commission in order to run in the elections set for November 3.

"They need to be registered as political parties or citizen initiatives according to Kosovo's election law," she noted, adding that they would "later complete the remaining requirements related to the elections, without which they could not run."

The Belgrade delegation was informed about this during the talks in Brussels, she said.

The final deadline for party and citizen initiative registration in order to take part in the municipal elections is in September.