Municipal elections in northern Kosovo are going smoothly with participation being particularly low due to Serb abstention. All polling stations opened as normal at 7:00 am, the Central Election Commission announced.

Indicative of the low turnout is the fact that in a polling center in Leposavic Municipality, where 4,000 voters are registered until 9:00 in the morning, only one voter voted.

Municipal elections in northern Kosovo are held in the Serb-majority municipalities of North Mitrovica, Leposavic, Zvečan and Zubin Potok. In these municipalities, in November 2022 during the license plate crisis, all Serbs left the local government bodies.

The government of Kosovo has announced emergency municipal elections. The Serbian parties, at the instigation and support of Belgrade, announced the boycott of the elections.

Kosovo Serbs are asking Pristina to first implement the commitment it made in 2013, with the Brussels Agreement, to establish the Union of Serbian Municipalities and then hold elections.

The government of Albin Kurti, despite the appeals and the international factor, persistently refuses to implement the agreed upon citing constitutional impediment. It is noted that the establishment of the Union of Serbian Municipalities is now part of the European proposal for the normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina which was agreed in Ohrid last March.

The president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, emphasized, on Thursday, April 20, that the result of today’s elections will not have any validity since the majority of Serbs will not participate.