VZCZCXRO4334
PP RUEHIK
DE RUEHPS #0510/01 3220527
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 180527Z NOV 09 ZDK CTG MULTIPLE SVC REQS
FM AMEMBASSY PRISTINA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 9484
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEHNO/USMISSION USNATO 1273
RUFOADA/JAC MOLESWORTH RAF MOLESWORTH UK
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 1804
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 WASHDC
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHDC
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC
RUZEJAA/USNIC PRISTINA SR

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 PRISTINA 000510 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPT FOR EUR/SCE, EUR/PGI, INL, DRL, PRM, USAID 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL KV
SUBJECT:  KOSOVO:  EARLY MAYORAL RESULTS SHOW FEW SURPRISES 
 
REF:  A) PRISTINA 502 AND PREVIOUS 
 
PRISTINA 00000510  001.5 OF 003 
 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED - PLEASE PROTECT ACCORDINGLY 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY:  On November 16, Kosovo's Central Elections 
Commission (CEC) released preliminary results for the November 15 
mayoral races.  In 36 municipalities, 16 mayoral races were decided 
in the first round, with the ruling Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) 
taking five, the junior coalition member Democratic League of Kosovo 
(LDK) took three, the opposition Alliance for the Future of Kosovo 
(AAK) winning four (including two Serb-majority municipalities in 
northern Kosovo), and Serb Independent Liberal Party (SLS) two. 
Runoffs scheduled for December 13 will take place in 20 
municipalities, including ten contests that will pit coalition 
partners PDK and LDK against each other.  Beghet Pacolli's New 
Kosovo Alliance (AKR) has been the most disgruntled party, 
complaining that electoral violations in Gjakove and Viti prevented 
its candidates from winning.  We have been advising all parties with 
complaints to file appeals with the independent Electoral Complaints 
and Appeals Commission, which has received 11 complaints thus far. 
The CEC will release preliminary results for Municipal Assembly 
elections the evening of November 17.  We expect to see final, 
certified results -- following the count of conditional ballots, 
out-of-Kosovo ballots, and special-needs-voting ballots -- for both 
mayoralties and assemblies at the beginning of next week.  END 
SUMMARY 
 
EARLY RESULTS LEAVE MUCH IN LIMBO 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) In a nationally televised press conference on November 16, 
Nesrin Lushta, chairperson of Kosovo's Central Elections Commission, 
provided a municipality by municipality review of preliminary 
election results for mayor's offices across the country.  The 
results of the first round of voting on November 15 settled races in 
16 municipalities -- those where one candidate secured a simple 
majority of the vote.  In the remaining 20 municipalities the top 
two candidates will square off in a second round of voting on 
December 13.  The parties winning multiple mayor's seats in the 
first round are the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) with five 
mayors, the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) with three, the 
Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) with four, and the 
Independent Liberal Party (SLS) with two. 
 
PDK IN THE HUNT FOR 22 MAYORS 
----------------------------- 
 
¶3. (SBU) Prime Minister Thaci's PDK won outright majorities in five 
municipalities:  Gllogovc/Glogovac, Skenderaj/Srbica, 
Shtime/Stimlje, Ferizaj/Urosevac, and the northern Serb-majority 
municipality Zubin Potok.  This is a disappointing first round total 
for a party that, following the close of polls on November 15, told 
the public that it had won 20 municipalities.  PDK, however, can 
look forward to an active campaign in December, as it will be 
participating in 17 of the 20 second-round elections that will take 
place on December 13.  In 12 of those 17 races, PDK will enter the 
contest as the leading vote-getter in the first round.  If it wins 
all 12 of those races, PDK will hold 17 mayoralties, one more than 
it does now.  This could be a tall order given PDK's unpopularity 
outside its core base; though it is the first choice of a committed 
group of voters, it is not frequently a voter's second choice.  PDK 
could find those parties who failed to make the runoff shifting 
their support to its opponents in many of these municipalities. 
 
 
LDK CLAIMS THE BIG PRIZE:  PRISTINA 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶4. (SBU) LDK can claim a big win with its dominant first round 
victory in the hotly contested election in Pristina (56.6 percent of 
the vote).  Its other first round victories include 
Podujeve/Podujevo and Fushe Kosove/Kosovo Polje.  LDK was the 
incumbent party in all four mayoralties.  It was also defending 
Istog/Istok, where it finished first but was forced into a runoff by 
 
PRISTINA 00000510  002.3 OF 003 
 
 
AAK, and Suhareke/Suva Reka, where the party appears to have 
finished third in a tight three-way race with PDK and AAK.  (Note: 
If uncounted conditional ballots break its way, LDK could manage to 
make it into a runoff.  End Note) LDK will compete in 11 
second-round contests, ten of them against its coalition partner, 
PDK.  Runoffs in Prizren, Gjilan/Gnjilane, and Lipjan/Lipljan, which 
will pit the coalition partners against each other, are anticipated 
to be among the second round's closest races.  In each of these 
three municipalities PDK is the incumbent party.  LDK has been 
stressing that on November 16 it collected almost 40,000 more votes 
than it did during the 2007's municipal elections.  That said, LDK 
will need a strong showing in the second round if it is to maintain 
its claim as a national party. 
 
AAK SURPASSES 2007 TOTAL IN FIRST ROUND 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) The opposition AAK and its leader Ramush Haradinaj won two 
mayor's offices in western Kosovo, Decan/Decane and 
Gjakove/Djakovica, as well as two mayoralties in Serb-majority 
municipalities in northern Kosovo, Leposavic/Leposaviq, and Zvecan. 
Decan and Gjakove are traditional AAK strongholds and fall within 
Haradinaj's local sphere of influence.  The Serb boycott of 
elections in the north made the victories in Leposavic and Zvecan 
possible.  In each municipality, a handful Albanians gave the AAK 
victories:  67 voters gave AAK 100% of the votes in Leposavic, and 
24 AAK voters in Zvecan represented 100% of that municipality's 
total voter turnout.  AAK will participate in 7 run-offs, including 
in Peje/Pec, where its candidate is the incumbent.  Regardless of 
the results of the runoffs, AAK will regard these elections as a 
watershed moment in its development.  In the 2007 municipal 
elections, AAK won 56,676 votes.  So far this year, with more than 
20,000 conditional ballots uncounted, AAK has more than doubled its 
nationwide vote count to 116,586.  Second round victories could see 
the AAK break out of western Kosovo, as it leads the race in central 
Kosovo's Suhareke/Suva Reka with 34.3 percent to second-place PDK's 
32.2 percent. 
 
SLS GRABS LEGITIMACY 
-------------------- 
 
¶6. (SBU) Kosovo's most prominent Serb party, the SLS, has long been 
dogged with criticism that it does not represent anyone, after it 
collected only a few hundred votes nationwide in 2007.  This year 
SLS captured more than 2,000 votes in a tense campaign in Gracanica, 
and its mayoral candidate, Bojan Stojanovic, won more than 60 
percent of the vote there for an easy first-round victory.  SLS also 
won in Klokot/Kllokot, where almost 700 Serbs voted and the SLS 
candidate, Sasa Mirkovic, ran unopposed for mayor of the new 
municipality.  In December, SLS will enter a runoff with PDK in the 
Strpce/Shterpce, with SLS leading 36.9 percent to 25.8 percent.  The 
promising Serb turnout in both Gracanica and Strpce, two areas that 
saw widespread boycotts in 2007, represent encouraging signs that 
more and more Serbs are looking to Kosovo institutions as guarantors 
of local autonomy, and the 2009 municipal elections give SLS a level 
of legitimacy that it lacked in the past, perhaps the most welcome 
news of the election.  In Ranilug, the third new Serb-majority, 
Ahtisaari-mandated municipality to vote on November 16, Gradimir 
Mikic, the current Serb Deputy Mayor of Kamenica, won.  He ran under 
his own party, Citizens Initiative for Ranilug.  Just over 550 Serbs 
voted in Ranilug. 
 
NOT EVERYONE IS HAPPY 
--------------------- 
 
¶7. (SBU) While PDK, AAK, LDK, and SLS can all find some satisfaction 
-- or, at least, a silver-lining -- in these preliminary results, 
the New Kosovo Alliance (AKR) and the Democratic League of Dardania 
(LDD) have nothing to celebrate.  AKR and LDD, neither of which held 
a mayor's office going into the election, formed a pre-election 
coalition that saw the two parties running joint candidates in most 
municipalities.  AKR hung its hopes on the contest in 
Gjakove/Djakovica, where it ran former American Chamber of Commerce 
director Mimoza Kusari.  She lost to the AAK candidate, the 
 
PRISTINA 00000510  003.3 OF 003 
 
 
incumbent mayor, Pal Lekaj, by a margin of 52.8 percent to 40.7 
percent, an impressive achievement given AAK's greater prominence 
and organization in the municipality.  AKR is protesting the 
outcome, alleging that AAK stuffed ballot boxes.  Kusari has filed 
complaints with the Electoral Complaints and Appeals Commission 
(ECAC), and the CEC has quarantined ballot boxes from four polling 
stations in Gjakove pending an ECAC investigation.  LDD, too, won no 
mayor's offices outright and will pin its hopes on a solid showing 
in Viti/Vitina, where it narrowly leads PDK, 32.3 percent to 30.5 
percent, going into the second round.  Neither party met its hopes 
and expectations, and the two parties' combined vote total, in a 
year where overall participation increased significantly, fell from 
127,000 in the 2007 elections to 89,450 this year. 
 
THE TIMELINE AHEAD 
------------------ 
 
¶8. (SBU) The CEC plans to announce the outcome of municipal assembly 
elections during an evening press conference on November 17.  We 
expect final certification of all races to occur at the beginning of 
next week, after the CEC finishes counting more than 20,000 
conditional ballots, absentee ballots, and special-needs-voting 
ballots.  ECAC, too, needs to rule on all complaints and investigate 
irregularities.  At present, parties have filed only 11 complaints, 
and four of them stem from AKR's allegations of AAK ballot-stuffing 
in Gjakove/Djakovica.  Once the first-round has been certified, the 
CEC will print ballots for the runoffs, and President Sejdiu will 
announce a new campaign period.  The runoffs will take place on 
December 13. 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶9. (SBU) We are pleased with the way Kosovo implemented its first 
post-independence elections, and we released a statement on November 
16 that congratulated the country.  Certainly, there are some claims 
of irregularities, and two videos of alleged ballot-stuffing aired 
on television newscasts on November 16, but all observer missions -- 
including our own -- have reported that the process was generally 
fair and transparent.  At an informal gathering of the observation 
missions after polls had closed on November 15, there was universal 
acclaim and team leaders from the European Commission and the 
European Network Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO) told us 
that they had been expecting widespread problems and were pleasantly 
surprised to see how well elections proceeded.  The OSCE, which ran 
Kosovo's earlier elections, told us today that these municipal 
elections have been Kosovo's best so far, and OSCE is "stunned" by 
how smoothly the process has run.  The major parties, too, have 
reason to be happy with the outcomes, thus far.  Tensions will 
increase as we get closer to December 13, however, and with PDK and 
LDK going head-to-head in ten runoffs, there is always a risk that 
the coalition will show signs of strain.  PDK right now appears 
confident, but its support is unique in Kosovo.  PDK has the most 
loyal base of support of any party, but its detractors are just as 
ardent, and it is unclear how many extra votes PDK candidates will 
be able to collect in its 17 second-round contests.  If LDK and AAK 
leaders encourage their voters to vote against PDK, the Prime 
Minister's party will suffer and so, too, may the coalition's 
fortunes. 
 
DELL