Global Policy Forum

By Merita Dhimgjoka

The party of moderate Ibrahim Rugova won Kosovo's municipal elections Monday, trouncing two groups led by former commanders of the Kosovo Liberation Army that fought against Slobodan Milosevic's forces for independence. Saturday's elections determined seats in city and town halls, but Rugova's strong showing positions him to take over Kosovo in still-to-be-declared province-wide elections. The victory also makes Rugova likely to lead Kosovo in difficult negotiations with Yugoslavia and foreign powers over the province's final status.

Based on preliminary results, Rugova's Democratic League of Kosovo won 58 percent of the vote compared to 27 percent for the Democratic Party of Kosovo led by Hashim Thaci, the former head of the now-disbanded KLA, said Daan Everts, Kosovo head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The party of Ramush Haradinaj, another former leader of the KLA, polled 7.72 percent but did not win any municipality.

With votes counted in 27 of 30 municipalities - or 90 percent of the votes, Everts said - Rugova's party won in 21 municipalities, while Thaci's group won in six.

"We can say that these elections were without fraud or incidents," Everts said in Pristina, Kosovo's capital. He said voter turnout was about 80 percent.

The elections were the first in Kosovo since NATO bombing forced Milosevic to pull out his troops in June 1999, ending a bloody crackdown against ethnic Albanian separatists. His departure left Kosovo to be run by the United Nations and NATO.

Even though Kosovo is still part of Serbia, Yugoslavia's main republic, Serbs make up only a small minority of the province's population. Most of Kosovo's 200,000 Serbs have fled over the past year in the face of increased attacks by ethnic Albanians seeking revenge for earlier Serb repression. The remaining Serbs boycotted Saturday's vote. In Belgrade on Sunday, Yugoslavia's new president Vojislav Kostunica lashed out against the vote, insisting that the Serbs' boycott made it invalid.

The official announcement of Rugova's victory was followed by celebratory gunfire in Pristina. Rugova had already declared victory based on the figures of independent monitoring groups and his party. Everts said his group expected complete final results "on Thursday at the latest."

Bernard Kouchner, Kosovo's top international administrator, said: "There is one winner today and that is all Kosovars, including the Serbs." U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called the vote "a landmark in Kosovo's democratic development," a spokesman said. The European Union acknowledged "the good conditions, the lack of incidents and the remarkably high participation rate."

Serbs in Kosovo reacted cautiously Monday, demanding the rights of the province's minorities must be respected for the win to be legitimate. "I think that democratic legitimacy of the (Rugova party) will depend very much on their position toward the rights of the Serbs and other minorities in Kosovo," said Father Sava Janjic, a moderate Serb leader.

The triumph by Rugova's party did nothing to eliminate the dilemma confronting the United States and its allies - how to satisfy both the new, democratic Yugoslav government, which wants to keep a strong hold on Kosovo, and the independence aspirations of Kosovo's estimated 2 million ethnic Albanians.

Rugova is more moderate than his chief rivals. But he shares their agenda of independence for Kosovo. He said Sunday that the ouster of Milosevic and his replacement by Kostunica, a more moderate nationalist, did not affect that goal. "Now, it's a question of how we are going to achieve it - a referendum or negotiations at the United Nations," he said. "I have another proposal - that it would be better if Kosovo's independence is recognized today."