VZCZCXRO7094
PP RUEHIK
DE RUEHPS #0497/01 3170959
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 130959Z NOV 09
FM AMEMBASSY PRISTINA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 9443
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEHNO/USMISSION USNATO 1264
RUFOADA/JAC MOLESWORTH RAF MOLESWORTH UK
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 1795
RHFMIUU/AFSOUTH NAPLES IT
RHMFISS/CDR TF FALCON
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC
RUEPGEA/CDR650THMIGP SHAPE BE
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEAWJA/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC
RHMFIUU/DEPT OF HOMELAND SECURITY WASHINGTON DC
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHDC
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC
RUZEJAA/USNIC PRISTINA SR

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 PRISTINA 000497 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPT FOR EUR/SCE, EUR/PGI, INL, DRL, PRM, USAID 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM EAID PINR KV
SUBJECT:  KOSOVO:  ELECTION PREDICTIONS 
 
REF:  A) PRISTINA 456 
      B) PRISTINA 463 
      C) PRISTINA 477 
      D) PRISTINA 492 
 
PRISTINA 00000497  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED - PLEASE PROTECT ACCORDINGLY 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY:  The November 15 municipal elections in Kosovo, 
the first since independence in 2008, will test both the relative 
strength of Kosovo's political parties and the capacity of Kosovo's 
Central Elections Commission to organize the polls.  We expect 
negative campaigning and concerns about the economy to result in the 
continuation of a decade-long slide in voter turnout in municipal 
elections, though a reinvigorated Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) 
could mitigate this trend.  Prime Minister Hashim Thaci's Democratic 
Party of Kosovo (PDK) will be hard-pressed to hold all sixteen of 
the mayor's offices it won in its landslide victory of 2007. 
President Sejdiu's LDK, and, to a lesser extent, Ramush Haradinaj's 
Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK), will benefit from PDK's 
inability to repeat its 2007 romp.  The November 15 elections are 
also a critical test of the international community's decision to go 
ahead with elections in three new Serb-majority municipalities and 
an expanded Novo Brdo despite the the absence of tangible municipal 
structures in them.  We and the International Civilian Office (ICO) 
have worked hard over the last several weeks to energize the Kosovo 
Serb vote, breathe life into the new municipalities and counter 
Belgrade's obstructionism.  We are cautiously optimistic that these 
efforts will produce a meaningful turnout, but it is not guaranteed. 
 On the other hand, information provided to us by various 
international election monitoring missions suggests the CEC will 
acquit itself well on November 15, and that the assistance the U.S. 
is providing to the CEC is paying off, though this may not prevent 
underperforming parties from attempting to lay blame for their 
shortcomings at the CEC's doorstep.  END SUMMARY 
 
OVERCOMING DECLINING VOTING TRENDS 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU) As the table below demonstrates, these first elections in 
independent Kosovo come amid a decade-long trend of decreasing voter 
participation in municipal elections. (Note:  Raw turnout figures 
provide the most accurate measure of turnout, since the voter lists 
continue to contain the names of emigrants and the deceased.  End 
Note) 
 
Table A:  Turnout in Kosovo Municipal Elections 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
Year     Raw Vote Count     Percent Turnout 
 
2000        721,000               79% 
 
2002        711,000              53.9% 
 
2007        565,919               36% 
 
Post-independence disillusionment fueled by a weak economy and poor 
job prospects drive voter apathy here in general, while the negative 
campaigning seen in several races -- especially in Pristina -- could 
further drive down turnout.  While an additional drop of roughly 
100,000 votes cannot be excluded, we anticipate that stronger 
campaigning by the LDK will blunt the trend somewhat, resulting in a 
turnout of about 525,000 votes, a decrease of roughly 40,000. 
 
STABILITY AND DECLINE 
--------------------- 
 
¶3. (SBU) While turnout has declined over time, two of Kosovo's three 
main parties -- Thaci's PDK and Haradinaj's AAK -- have presented 
amazingly stable results in municipal polls, as the table below 
shows.  LDK, on the other hand, has gone from far and away the 
largest voter base in Kosovo to a distant second. 
 
Table B:  Municipal Results by Party (Raw Vote Count) 
 
PRISTINA 00000497  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
 
Year        LDK        PDK        AAK 
 
2000      398,872    187,821    53,074 
 
2002      320,918    207,012    61,824 
 
2007      129,642    189,012    56,676 
 
¶4. (SBU) We contend that apathy among traditional LDK voters and 
weak party leadership caused the party's precipitous fall in the 
polls in 2007 and was the single largest factor behind the sharp 
decline in overall turnout (ref B).  No matter what the cause, the 
result was a drastic reordering of the leadership in Kosovo's 
municipalities. 
 
Table C:  Mayor's Offices Won (by Party) 
---------------------------------------- 
 
Year      LDK      PDK      AAK     Others 
 
2002       20       6        0        4 
 
2007        7      16        3        4 
 
 
LDK WILL CLAW BACK SOME 2007 LOSSES 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶5.  (SBU) PDK's big win in 2007 leaves the party with a number of 
(vulnerable) seats to defend, in many cases for the first time.  In 
addition, having the lead role in the central government combined 
with running most of Kosovo's municipalities will make PDK the 
likely target for anti-incumbent public dissatisfaction rooted in 
concerns about the economy and perceptions that corruption is on the 
rise.  That said, we do not expect any party to outpoll PDK in raw 
vote totals nationwide.  While PDK will poll at or near its standard 
200,000, we predict that a moderate LDK resurgence will see them 
pick up 3-4 mayor's offices nationwide.  Ramush Haradinaj's AAK, 
seemingly stuck at roughly 60,000 votes for ten years, has an 
opportunity to post its best results yet.  AAK should easily surpass 
its high water mark of 61,824 votes nationwide, and could manage to 
control 4-5 municipalities when the December runoffs are through. 
 
 
KOSOVO SERBS:  OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶6.  (SBU) With elections in four of the "five plus one" majority 
Kosovo Serb municipalities established under Ahtisaari Plan 
decentralization (Klokot, Ranilug, Novo Brdo, and Gracanica), the 
November 15 elections are a watershed event for Kosovo's Serb 
population.  We, the Government of Kosovo, and the International 
Civilian Office have worked with Municipal Preparation Teams, with 
mother municipalities, and with the media to underscore the benefits 
of decentralization and to stress the importance of these polls to 
the Kosovo Serb population.  The high number of Serb parties 
registered (over 20) and competition between ethnic Serb candidates 
in races across the nation give us hope for reasonably strong 
turnout.  That said, threats from Serbian parallel structures to 
take jobs from candidates and increasingly strident calls to boycott 
the vote will not help.  (Note:  This latter phenomenon may itself 
be an indicator that Belgrade too senses higher-than-expected 
interest among Kosovo Serbs and is trying to counter this 
"unhelpful" trend.  End Note) Serbian Government officials' refusal 
to permit the CEC to use Serbian schools as polling places adds 
organizational complexity and uncertainty to these first elections 
in the new municipalities and poses the most serious threat to 
Kosovo Serb turnout.  We are cautiously optimistic about the 
possible outcomes in the new Serb-majority municipalities, but a low 
turnout among Serbs could undercut the legitimacy of the results and 
setback our decentralization efforts.  Participation in the south 
notwithstanding, we expect only a handful of votes (literally) to be 
 
PRISTINA 00000497  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
cast in Kosovo's three Serb-majority municipalities in the north. 
 
CEC PREP ON TRACK, COMPLAINTS A POTENTIAL ISSUE 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
¶7. (SBU) Information from various international election monitoring 
missions -- including the USAID-funded European Network of Election 
Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO) effort -- show that the Central 
Elections Commission's (CEC) preparations for election day are 
largely on track.  ENEMO representatives are concerned, however, 
that the independent Elections Complaints and Appeals Center (ECAC) 
might not be logistically capable of handling what could be hundreds 
of election day complaints that should be adjudicated within 48 to 
72 hours.  In a meeting with international stakeholders November 12, 
EU Special Representative Pieter Feith noted that efforts were 
underway to address logistics and capacity issues there.  ENEMO will 
be joined in the field as monitors by a nationwide NGO effort led by 
the USAID-funded coalition Democracy in Action, as well as by a 
European Parliament delegation, 32 teams of short-term observers 
from the Embassy and surrounding U.S. missions, and a significant 
number of observers from the International Civilian Office, the 
British Embassy and other bilateral missions. 
 
COMMENT:  CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM 
--------------------------- 
 
¶8.  (SBU) While the last days of the campaign have been marred by 
violent incidents and wild claims of potential fraud, the campaign 
season and CEC preparations have proceeded rather well.  A 
successful poll was never a foregone conclusion, particularly given 
the very late determination of the final number of municipalities to 
vote, but CEC representatives seem ready to hold Kosovo's first 
post-independence elections, and OSCE advisers at the CEC tell us 
that technical preparations are in good shape.  Solid preparation 
and our efforts to support the process notwithstanding, we cannot 
rule out a raft of fraud allegations and conspiracy theories in the 
days following the polls, largely from those whose parties fall 
short of sometimes outsized expectations.   We predict that LDK will 
show the biggest pick up both in raw votes and in mayor's offices it 
controls, and we suspect that PDK and AAK will have something to 
cheer about as well.  On the eve of the polls, we are optimistic 
that the elections will burnish Kosovo's democratic credentials and 
cautiously optimistic that the outcome will advance our efforts to 
build a geniunely multiethnic Kosovo via decentralization.  END 
COMMENT 
 
DELL