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PP RUEHDBU RUEHFL RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHROV RUEHSR
DE RUEHPS #0668/01 2491542
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P 061542Z SEP 07
FM USOFFICE PRISTINA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7671
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK PRIORITY 1263
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC PRIORITY
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PRISTINA 000668 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EUR, EUR/SCE, DRL, INL, AND S/WCI, NSC FOR BRAUN, 
USUN FOR DREW SCHUFLETOWSKI, USOSCE FOR STEVE STEGER 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/06/2017 
TAGS: PGOV PREL KV
SUBJECT: KOSOVO: CENTRAL AND LOCAL ELECTIONS SET FOR 
NOVEMBER 17 
 
 
Classified By: COM Tina Kaidanow for reasons 1.5 (b) and (d). 
 
¶1. (C) Summary.  On August 31, UN SRSG Ruecker announced that 
elections will be held in Kosovo on November 17.  Three 
ballots will be cast by voters for the central Assembly, the 
Municipal Assemblies, and for the first time, direct election 
of mayors.  Additionally, Ruecker announced a five percent 
threshold for ethnic Albanian parties to enter the Assembly 
and the use of open candidate lists.  Political parties have 
until September 12 to file these lists.  The OSCE mission in 
Pristina has full responsibility for organizing the 
elections.  Despite arguments to delay elections until 
Kosovo's final status is resolved, Ruecker decided to honor 
the Unity Team request to hold elections this year by the 
third week of November.  Discussion has already begun as to 
whether current President of Kosovo Fatmir Sejdiu can head 
his LDK party list, and whether AAK leader Ramush Haradinaj, 
currently on trial for war crimes in The Hague, can 
participate at all, although UNMIK has stated that he can. 
USOP, through implementing partners IFES and NDI, plans to 
support the OSCE-led process through voter education and get 
out the vote campaigns, and to mount its own observation 
effort.  It is unlikely that the Kosovo Serbs will 
participate in significant numbers in any of the three 
elections; to potentially affect this, we will need to weigh 
in with Belgrade sooner rather than later.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (C)  In an August 28 meeting with USOP, SRSG Ruecker and 
PDSRSG Schook previewed UNMIK's plan to announce elections 
that week and to designate November 17 as election day. 
Ruecker reviewed the various arguments, pro and con, for 
holding elections prior to status.  Ultimately, he felt that 
elections could no longer be held hostage to various 
political interests, and, given the letter he had received 
from the Unity Team August 15 requesting that elections be 
held by the third week of November, he decided to honor that 
request and move ahead.  After receiving the support of the 
Contact Group, Ruecker made his announcement on August 31, 
setting September 12 as the deadline for parties to file 
their candidate lists. 
 
Nuts and Bolts 
-------------- 
 
¶3. (C)  Following up on his Executive Decision 2007/44 of 
August 16 which authorized the Central Election Commission to 
begin preparations for elections, Ruecker issued two new 
regulations on August 30.  Regulation 2007/25 amends 
Regulation 2004/9 and determines the composition of the 
Central Election Commission (CEC).  The CEC will have 12 
members.  The President of Kosovo will nominate a 
Commissioner who will act as Deputy Chairperson and will be 
chosen from among the sitting judges of the Supreme Court. 
Six Commissioners will be appointed by the SRSG based on 
nominations received from the six largest political parties 
represented in the Assembly.  One Commissioner will come from 
the Serb community and three will come from the other 
minority communities.  The OSCE ambassador in Kosovo (i.e, 
the Deputy SRSG for Institution Building) will also be a 
Commissioner and act as Chairperson. 
 
¶4. (U)  Regulation 2007/26 amends Regulation 2004/12 allowing 
the SRSG to set and announce the date of the election 
(November 17).  It declares that candidate lists will be 
"open lists," meaning that -- for the first time in Kosovo -- 
a voter can select the 10 candidates he or she prefers from 
the list of the political party for which he votes.  The 
regulation specifies that all candidate lists must be 
comprised of at least 30 percent women.  Significantly, it 
also sets a threshold of five percent of total valid votes 
for an ethnic Albanian political party to enter the Assembly. 
 Twenty seats are reserved for minorities (ten Serb and ten 
other minorities), in keeping with the Ahtisaari-envisioned 
structure of the Assembly.  The term in office for the Kosovo 
Assembly will be four years. 
 
¶5. (C)  The regulation establishing the direct election of 
mayors will be issued in the near future.  It will likely set 
the term in office at two years for both the mayor and the 
Municipal Assembly for this election only, with subsequent 
terms set at four years.  The rationale for this is twofold: 
to stagger elections such that, in future, municipal 
elections and central elections are not held co-terminously; 
 
PRISTINA 00000668  002 OF 003 
 
 
and to encourage quicker implementation of the Ahtisaari 
plan, which, once the relevant legislation is passed, will 
require redrawing municipal boundaries and re-running 
municipal elections to create new, Serb-majority 
municipalities with corresponding local administrations. 
 
¶6. (C)  The OSCE mission has full responsibility for 
organizing these elections.  OSCE in Pristina has expressed 
concern over the compressed preparation period and initially 
suggested that elections be split into two, central and 
municipal, in order to adequately prepare.  Because OSCE is 
running the elections, ODIHR (the election observations arm 
of OSCE) will not be leading the election observation 
mission.  The Council of Europe has been invited to take on 
this role.  USOP and other internationals on the ground will 
also field monitoring teams in November.  (Comment: OSCE will 
have its hands full to make these complicated elections, with 
three ballots to cast and hundreds of candidates to consider, 
understandable to the Kosovo voter.  USOP, through USAID 
implementers IFES and NDI, will pitch in by getting involved 
in voter education and get out the vote campaigns.) 
 
Top of the Ticket 
----------------- 
 
¶7. (C)  As parties are scrambling to pull their lists 
together, they are putting their most well-known candidate at 
the top.  This creates difficulties for the ruling LDK party, 
whose current leader is the President of Kosovo, Fatmir 
Sejdiu.  It is not clear whether Sejdiu can run for the 
Assembly while remaining Kosovo's president, and what the 
consequences would be if he wins a seat (which would be 
almost guaranteed).  The Central Elections Commission and the 
OSCE, most likely, will have to make a final determination. 
 
¶8. (C)  UNMIK ruled on September 5 that Ramush Haradinaj, 
head of the AAK party and currently on trial at The Hague for 
war crimes, can participate in the elections and head the 
AAK's list.  According to the Kosovo Constitutional 
Framework, "a candidate would be disqualified if serving a 
prison term on a conviction by the ICTY or had been indicted 
by the ICTY and did not appear before the same."  This 
decision has caused some consternation among Serbs and 
reportedly also elicited unhappiness from the ICTY.  In 
another recent development, current Prime Minister and AAK 
member Agim Ceku has stated publicly that he will not run in 
these elections, though he has not ruled out the possibility 
of accepting an office if offered one by whatever government 
is formed post-elections (Kosovo's constitutional framework 
does not require that ministers hold a seat in parliament). 
 
Serb Participation 
------------------ 
 
¶9. (C)  Despite creative calculations by some suggesting that 
Kosovar Serbs, given the 5 percent threshold, could gain 
several additional seats in the Kosovo Assembly should their 
turnout be high and Albanian turnout be low, it is unlikely 
that Kosovo Serbs will participate in significant numbers, 
particularly in central elections.  In conversations with COM 
and other USOP officers, Kosovo Serb leaders have indicated 
they will take direction from Belgrade on whether or not to 
participate, with the assumption on their part being they 
will be told to stay away.  There are some hints, however, 
that given the go-ahead from Belgrade, local Serbs would be 
willing to run in at least municipal elections, since they 
fear that independent Serb candidates -- perhaps running in 
tandem with or in coalition with Albanian parties -- could 
sweep municipal seats in the event of a general Serb boycott 
and set up competing municipal administrations. 
 
¶10. (C)  COMMENT:  USOP supports SRSG Ruecker's decision to 
move ahead on elections.  Municipal elections have been 
delayed for nearly a year already, and even with the 
complicating factor of Kosovo's unresolved status, the 
democratic process cannot be put on hold indefinitely.  Nor 
would Kosovo's opposition likely consent to remain part of a 
unified negotiating team for status discussions if their 
opportunity to gain power democratically were pushed off for 
many more months.  We will do our part to assist OSCE in 
making these elections as transparent and comprehensible to 
the Kosovo voter as possible, and we will hold Kosovo's 
leaders to their pledge not to use the Ahtisaari package or 
 
PRISTINA 00000668  003 OF 003 
 
 
the final status process as a political football during the 
campaign.  We are fairly certain Kosovo Serbs will not 
participate in these elections, especially at the central 
level.  However, if we want to make a pitch to Belgrade to 
encourage Serb participation, and given the very tight 
deadlines involved in party registration, we need to mobilize 
this effort immediately.  To be most effective, we recommend 
it be a joint Contact Group effort.  END COMMENT. 
KAIDANOW