Serb majority in Kosovo shuns vote on ethnic Albanian mayors

(ANSA-AFP) - PRISTINA, APR 22 - Ethnic Serbs in Kosovo's north on Sunday boycotted an extraordinary local election on whether to oust their ethnic Albanian mayors in a territory riddled with tension. The vote could have paved the way for the election of Serbs to the mayoral posts after the appointment of the ethnic Albanians sparked violence in the Belgrade-backed region with a Serb majority. But only 253 out of some 45,000 eligible voters cast ballots, the Central Election Commission said (CEC). For the election to be valid turnout has to be above 50 percent. Therefore the vote has failed, CEC chair Kreshnik Radoniqi said. "The boycott implies the continuation of the 'status quo'... Serbs in the north continue to be an instrument in the hands of Belgrade for political bargaining," the Koha Ditore daily paper said online. Tensions in Kosovo's troubled north have been smouldering for months, following local elections won by the ethnic Albanian mayors in April last year.
    (ANSA-AFP).