Kosovo Election Winner Challenges Serb Vote Rejection

The winning party in Kosovo's October election, Vetevendosje, filed a challenge at the Supreme Court on Tuesday against a decision by electoral authorities to rule invalid votes sent from Serbia, potentially costing the party three seats in parliament.

Adnan Rrustemi, Vetevendosje's representative on the Central Election Commission, said three elected MPs from the party had filed an appeal to Kosovo's highest court "convinced that these decisions are essentially political in form".

Kosovo's Election Complaints and Appeals Panel, ECAP, on Monday declared 3,782 votes sent from Serbia as invalid, on the grounds they were delivered by Serbian officials rather than as required by regular post.

Rrustemi said ECAP had twice rejected earlier complaints about votes sent from Serbia and that its reversal was an attempt to cost Vetevendosje's seats.

Invalidation of the votes would alter the distribution of seats to other parties, giving Vetevendosje three less but pushing the NISMA-AKR-PD coalition over the threshold to enter parliament.

The change means Vetevendosje would be unable to form a coalition government only with the support of the second-placed Democratic League of Kosovo, which would also lose one seat under the new calculation.

Political analyst Blerim Vela said the parties would be forced to seek additional partners.

"This makes these parties vulnerable to the requests of other parties in the parliament and does not offer governing stability," Vela told BIRN. 

Vela said the Supreme Court had three days to issue a ruling. 

"Based on the Supreme Court's decisions on diaspora votes via post, it is possible that the Court will overturn ECAP's decision," he said.