Kosovo election authority bans main ethnic Serb party from parliamentary vote

PRISTINA, Kosovo — Kosovo’s election authority on Monday barred the main ethnic Serb party from competing in the upcoming parliamentary election, justifying the move by pointing to its nationalist stance and close ties to Serbia.

The Central Election Commission declined to certify Kosovo’s main ethnic Serb party, Srpska Lista, or Serb List.

Some commission's members mentioned how Srpska Lisa leader Zlatan Elek has never referred to Kosovo as an independent republic, but instead as “Kosovo i Metohija,” meaning Serbia's autonomous province of Kosovo, as Belgrade calls it.

The commission officials also said that the Serb party holds close ties with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and other Serb leaders who also refuse to recognize Kosovo's independence.

There was no immediate reaction from Srpska Lista.

The move may further aggravate the already tense ties between Kosovo and Serbia, despite efforts by the international community to normalize them.

Vučić criticized the move in an Instagram post, describing the Serb List Party as the “only political opponent” of Prime Minister Albin Kurti.

“Kurti is trying to root out the Serb people from (our) southern province, he said.

The issue also was one of the topics during Vučić’s phone conversation on Monday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, informing him that Kosovo was “violating all acts of international law by trying to ban the Serb List from participating in the upcoming election.”

Kosovo holds a parliamentary election on Feb. 9, which is expected to be a key test for Kurti, whose governing party won in a landslide in the 2021.

Kosovo was a Serbian province until NATO’s 78-day bombing campaign in 1999 ended a war between Serbian government forces and ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo, which left about 11,400 dead, mainly ethnic Albanians, and pushed Serbian forces out. Kosovo proclaimed independence in 2008, which Serbia doesn’t recognize.

Belgrade still considers Kosovo as its province and has a major influence on the ethnic Serb minority living there.