Kosovo votes calmly, hopes for economic upswing
PRISTINA |
(Reuters) - Kosovars began voting in their first parliamentary election as citizens of an independent country on Sunday, with both the Albanian majority and Serb minority eager to see the new leaders lift them out of poverty.
Caretaker Prime Minister Hashim Thaci's PDK party is seen leading by a small margin its former coalition ally, the right-wing LDK. Both campaigned on promises to launch an economic recovery, bring down unemployment from 48 percent and fight corruption.
However, ethnic Serbs in the divided town of Mitrovica are boycotting the election, showing lingering tensions from Kosovo's breakaway from Serbia. Nine Serb parties were running for parliament elsewhere and their Serb voters had come out to cast ballots.
The European Union and the United States view the snap election as a test of Kosovo's democratic maturity. A free and fair vote is a condition for eventual membership in the EU.
"Today, Kosovo votes for a European future, for a European Kosovo, for visa liberalization, for Kosovo as a NATO member, for integration in the EU and the United Nations," Thaci said after casting his vote in Pristina.
His rival Isa Mustafa, Mayor of Pristina and newly-elected head of the LDK, founded by late pacifist leader Ibrahim Rugova, said the day was important for "democracy and governance."
"I believe that these elections will be successful and all of us will be happy with the outcome," Mustafa added.
BETTER ECONOMY
Their coalition, which led Kosovo when it declared independence from Serbia in 2008, collapsed after president Fatmir Sejdiu resigned at a time when the European Union rule of law mission raided ministries in its anti-corruption drive.
"The only thing that I want is a better economy and the health sector to be improved. Hospitals are a disaster here," nurse Durie Zhubi told Reuters at a Pristina polling station.
Dobrila Radenkovic, a Serb in the enclave of Gracanica, said she expected prosperity.
"So far I am satisfied with my party, it is visible that they did a lot with limited funds and we hope for our better future here," Radenkovic told Reuters Television.
The voting proceeded calmly. Domestic monitors said there were no incidents in the early hours of voting. Some complained the lamps checking for double voting did not work and spray marking those who voted had been replaced with water.
In the Serb-dominated northern part of Kosovo, polling stations were not open on Sunday and the election commission had sent some mobile voting booths under police protection, a Reuters reporter and monitors of Democracy in Action said.
Police said a private building used by NATO peacekeepers was shot at a few hours after midnight in the Serb dominated town of Zubin Potok. It was empty at the time.
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