"Key is now in hands of Brussels"

Source: B92

BELGRADE -- The director of the Serbian government's media office said on Monday that "no one could accept the results of elections in northern Kosovo."

(Tanjug, file)

"The key is now in the hands of Brussels," he added.
When asked "what happened yesterday in Kosovska Mitrovica," Milivoje Mihajlović told B92 that, in political terms, what occurred was "the failure of the elections."

He said they were a chance for Serbs to participate in the political life, to choose their leadership that would affect the overall life of the Serbs in Kosovo.

"It is a powerful force through which the Serbs could affect the government in Priština, however, the voting in Kosovska Mitrovica started in an irregular manner. Whoever voted was subjected to verbal lynching, and afterwards, the polls were broken as well as the ballot boxes," he said.

Thus, Mihajlović pointed out, elections in the north neither started on time, nor were completed on time, and there were a lot of irregularities, with the OSCE withdrawing in the end.

Asked if these elections will be repeated, Mihajlović said that "that can happen," but noted that the decision would be made by the Central Election Commission of Kosovo, and that it may be influenced by the OSCE.

In any case, he continued, "these elections were not regular and if we look at who is to blame, we can say that there is fault on all sides."

"The government helped in organizing the elections and has done everything in its power. But some things should have been done before the organization of elections, such as for example, identifying the hooligans who were in the north and broke the boxes. They had to be isolated and processed for something they had done before," Mihajlović added.

Another problem was created by the administration in Priština, said he, "about symbols on ballot papers and manipulation of voter rolls." As an example, he said that "on some ballot papers the emblem of Kosovo was taped over with white paper."