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| Europe |
| Kosovo Hardliners Win Top Posts in Local Polls |
| 2013-12-03 |
| [An Nahar] Hardline nationalists took top posts in Kosovo's capital as well as the main Serb-populated town in the breakaway territory in local elections, preliminary results showed Monday. The electoral commission said the capital Pristina was won by Shpend Ahmeti of the nationalist Self Determination movement, which opposes the presence of the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... and NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... in Kosovo as well as any talks with Serbia. Belgrade-backed nationalist candidate Krstimir Pantic won the mayoral post in tense ethnically-divided Kosovska Mitrovica, the main town in the northern region populated mostly by Serb minority. Although the ruling Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) of Prime Minister Hashim Thaci lost power in three towns, it would still control most of the municipalities -- ten out of 29 -- in the former Serbian province. The election was part of a historic deal brokered by the EU in April to normalize ties between Serbia and Kosovo since the breakaway territory proclaimed independence in 2008. Serbia rejects Kosovo's independence but had urged its ethnic Serb community to vote and have their say in Pristina-run institutions. Some 120,000 ethnic Serbs live in Kosovo, whose 1.8 million population is mainly Albanian. Round one of the vote, on November 3, was annulled in Mitrovica due to violence by Serbian myrmidons. Repeat elections were held two weeks later under police watch. |
| Posted by:Fred |