Rikalo: New election law will reduce rights of Serbs

FRANKFURT - If the Kosovo parliament passes a bill of amendments to the Law on General Elections on Thursday, Serbs' rights will be reduced, warned Nenad Rikalo, the only Serb member of the Kosovo central election commission.

The rights of Serbs in Kosovo-Metohija (KiM) would be reduced in at least four aspects, Rikalo said in a statement to the Frankfurt-based daily Vesti.

He explained that the number of eligible Serb voters would be reduced, and the control of the electoral process would then be carried out mostly by Albanian parties. Besides that, the internally displaced Serbs who are now living in other parts of Serbia would then face even more difficult procedure for registering and exercising their right to vote and, finally, the number of seats for Serbs and other minorities in the parliament would be permanently slashed, as the reserved seats would be abolished.

Amendments to the election law envisage that only those holding Kosovo's citizenship would have the right to vote, which means that only those who have documents issued by the Kosovo Interior Ministry would be able to register in the electoral roll. That would diminish the number of Serbs eligible to vote to around 40,000, which is several time less than the real number, Rikalo said.

He noted that in previous local elections, around 130,000 eligible Serb voters were on the electoral roll, but that over 250,000 displaced Serbs could apply for voting in KiM according to the criteria that are now in place.

However, if the amendments to the election law were passed, the displaced persons who would like to claim their voting right would have to prepare the evidence concerning Kosovo's citizenship, and then start the registration procedure.