Global Policy Forum

By Melinda Henneberger

Kosovo's Serbs turned out in much greater numbers than originally thought in elections on Saturday, showing that they see a future despite the Albanian domination of their province and securing a real level of power in a new provincial assembly, Western officials said today.

Most Serbs appear to have voted just before polls closed, and after dark so they would not be seen by community leaders opposed to taking part in the vote for a 120-seat assembly. The elections were devised by the international officials who have ruled Kosovo since the war over it ended in June 1999 and NATO troops arrived here.

"The fact that so many came out anyway means they want to stay, they want to work, and that's important," one Western diplomat said.

The provincial assembly is supposed to move the roughly 2 million residents of Kosovo — which is about 95 percent ethnic Albanian — closer to establishing a home-grown government. The new officials could replace those from the United Nations who have been running Kosovo since Serbian security forces withdrew after NATO's bombing war in 1999.

A majority of Kosovo's Serbs — as many as 200,000 — fled that year, and there are fewer than 100,000 Serbs left. Last year, the Serbs boycotted Kosovo's first democratic elections, of municipal officials.

So the 46 percent Serbian turnout on Saturday — only 10 days after officials in Belgrade put out the word to participate — was a real shift, and one that in many ways validated the election process, officials from international groups here said.

"Who would have thought two years ago that we'd have peaceful elections with all ethnic groups participating?" said Scott Bates, who works for the Washington-based National Democracy Institute. "I was here then, and I can tell you, this is a miracle."

Now, the Serbian minority will not only be part of the provincial government, but will also wield some real power in it. Results announced tonight showed that Serbs got 11 percent of the vote, will have 21 of the assembly's 120 seats and will constitute the third-largest voting block.

Ten of those seats had been set aside for the Serbs in any case, and there was grumbling among Albanians that the Europeans running the election process had done everything possible to help them. There were complaints, too, that Serbs turned out to vote merely because they wanted to be part of the assembly and therefore in position to obstruct its work and deny any Albanian push for independence.

"If the Serbs want to obstruct, they can, but they won't help themselves," said Veton Surroi, publisher of Kosovo's leading newspaper, Koha Ditore, who was a member of an Albanian team that tried to negotiate with Serbs before the war.

Neither will Albanians help themselves, he added, unless they are able to reach a consensus with Serbs. Still, he said, "Once we have Serbs in the Parliament, there will be political tension instead of physical tension."

The results were announced after 92 percent of the vote was counted. They showed that Ibrahim Rugova, the moderate Albanian leader who got by far the most votes, will have to form a coalition to be elected president by the assembly.

His party received 46 percent of the vote, compared with 26 percent for the party of Hashim Thaci, a former Kosovo Liberation Army commander, and 8 percent for that of Ramush Haradinaj, another former commander.

Though the Serbs would feel most at home in a coalition with Mr. Rugova, it is considered unlikely because he is already thought by a number of Albanians to be too soft toward them and would apparently prefer not to come to power with Serbian support.

In another seeming paradox, the most hard-line of the major Albanian parties, Mr. Thaci's group, is said to be pursuing an alliance with the Serbs in an effort to prove to the world its new democratic attitude.

In fact there are at least a dozen plausible ways a coalition could be put together. By far the most likely, political analysts said, would be for Mr. Rugova to first join with all the non-Serbian minority groups, who have also been promised 10 assembly seats. To strengthen his mandate, he might also work with Mr. Haradinaj, considered a favorite of Americans.

Several Western diplomats expressed annoyance with Mr. Rugova, because his first post-election announcement included a provocative statement outlining his intention to move quickly to declare Kosovo's independence — something left deliberately vague by outsiders and supposedly beyond the purview of the assembly.

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