Kosovo North Serbs Collect Signatures to Dismiss Their ‘Unwanted’ Mayors

The lengthy process to dismiss Albanian mayors from four Serb-majority municipalities in northern Kosovo started on Wednesday amid confidence that enough citizens will support it.

Hundreds of residents of municipalities in Serb-majority northern Kosovo on Wednesday signed petitions to dismiss mayors they don’t want.

Veselin Radovic from Leposavic said he hoped enough signatures will be collected in time for the petition to go through. “We are satisfied with the signatures we collected today so I hope the initiative will be successful,” Radovic told BIRN.

Hundreds of locals had showed up by Wednesday around noon and Radovic expects more to come the next day. The deadline for the collection of signatures expires on January 22, but they could demand more time, if needed.

For its petition to succeed, Leposavic needs to collect around 2,700 signatures out of a total of just over 13,000 registered voters – 20 per cent.

Petition tent in the municipality of Leposavic, with a sign saying “Collecting signatures for dismissal of illegitimate president of Leposavic municipality”. Photo: BIRN/Perparim Isufi

In September last year, the government of Prime Minister Albin Kurti issued an Administrative Instruction, which regulates the way citizens can go about dismissing a mayor through petitions.

According to the rules, at least three citizens with the right to vote in a certain municipality must form an initiating group and then notify the chairman of the municipal assembly of their aim to collect signatures for a petition to remove the mayor.

A minimum of 20 per cent of all registered voters in any municipality must then sign the petition.

Massive response of Kosovo Serbs at the start of petition on dismissal of mayors in four Serb-dominantly municipalities in north of Kosovo, in Sport hall in North Mitrovica, January 17 2024. Photo: BIRN/Perparim Isufi

For the mayor finally to be dismissed, 50 per cent of the overall list of voters is needed, plus one. Otherwise, a repeat initiative can only be made one year later.

In front of the square where Radovic’s group had installed a tent where citizens can sign, Leposavic’s mayor, Lulzim Hetemi, waited in his office on the fourth floor of the municipal building.

Hetemi was installed as mayor at the end of May last year amid much tension. Many locals Serbs protested when he showed up to take up office under heavy police escort.

“We have allowed them to start collecting signatures. We have no issues about it. It was the government that allowed it,” Hetemi told BIRN.

Lulzim Hetemi, mayor of Leposavic. Photo: BIRN/Perparim Isufi

Life for Hetemi as mayor has not always been easy. Hours after he took up office, as local Serbs gathered to protest, NATO’s peacekeeping force in Kosovo, KFOR, took over security in Leposavic and around the municipal building.

It also meant that if Hetemi left the building, he wouldn’t easily be able to go back to it, so for months he spent days and nights in the building without leaving.

“I think it was worthwhile. You can see the difference. Sovereignty has been restored all over Kosovo and in Leposavic, too,” he says, now his work has become less stressful; these days, he comes to the office in the morning and leaves in the evening.

But Hetemi does not intend to run again as mayor if the petition proves successful and the municipality holds another round of mayoral elections. “I don’t think I will run again for mayor. We achieved our goal,” he says.

Petition tent in the municipality of Leposavic. Photo: BIRN/Perparim Isufi

In North Mitrovica, meanwhile, hundreds of citizens stampeded to the town’s Sports Centre on Wednesday, where dozens of booths were waiting for them to put pen to paper for the same process.

Blazo Turkovic signed the petition that morning, hoping to see the back of the current mayor and a replacement from the Serbian community installed in the municipality. “He should not have been here [in office],” Turkovic said of the current incumbent.

“It was our mistake not to participate in [the local] elections and make it possible for him to enter a building that does not belong to him,” Turkovic said, referring to Mayor Erden Atiq, an ethnic Albanian from PM Kurti’s ruling Vetevendosje party.

Woman is signing the petition on dismissal of mayors in four Serb-dominantly municipalities in north of Kosovo, in Sport hall in North Mitrovica, January 17 2024. Photo: BIRN/Perparim Isufi

North Mitrovica has far more voters than rural Leposavic – over 18,000 – so meeting the 20-per-cent signature threshold in this municipality means collecting 3,640 names, a task which municipal coordinator Sanja Krtinic thinks may be achieved within days.

The president of the Belgrade-backed party Srpska Lista, Zlatan Elek, as well as the party’s former president, Goran Rakic, were both present in Mitrovica, but declined to comment to the media.

The Serb-majority north of Kosovo ended up with ethnic Albanian mayors after Serbs boycotted the local elections in April 2023.

As a result, North Mitrovica, Zvecan, Leposavic and Zubin Potok saw mayors from ethnic Albanian parties elected to office on tiny turnouts of only 3 to 5 per cent.

In the previous 2019 local elections, which Serbs from the north did not boycott, the turnout was 51.07 per cent in Zubin Potok. 39.38 per cent in North Mitrovica, 42.53 per cent in Leposavic and 45.30 per cent in Zvecan.

Petitions to dismiss the mayors of Zvecan and Zubin Potok are expected to be launched next week.