Turnout was just 3.47 percent -- 1,567 voters -- out of some
45,000 of those registered, Electoral Commission spokesman
Valmir Elezi told media.
An estimated 120,000 Serbs live in
Kosovo, many in the four northern districts bordering Serbia
where Sunday's local polls were held -- an attempt to restore
the local governments after their ethnic Serb councillors
resigned in November. There are frequent bouts of unrest in the
northern enclaves, where many ethnic Serbs have, like Belgrade,
never accepted the unilateral declaration of independence that
Kosovo made from its neighbour in 2008. Of the voters eligible
to vote on Sunday, 95 percent were ethnic Serbs. Belgrade backed
the boycott and is pushing for an "association of Serb councils"
-- a form of autonomy for the Serb minority in Kosovo, where the
majority of the 1.8 million inhabitants are ethnic Albanian. "I
hate everyone who's taking part in these elections... because
they're accepting the Albanian state," said Milan Bulatovic, a
resident of the northern city of Mitrovica, referring to
independent Kosovo. The head of the electoral commission,
Kreshnik Radoniqi, said the 19 polling stations had "opened as
planned" on Sunday. No incidents of violence were reported
before polls closed at 7:00 pm (1700 GMT) according to Radoniqi.
Sunday's boycott means, in theory, that ethnic Albanian parties
could take control of the local councils in the north. In March,
Kosovo and Serbia stopped short of signing a potentially
landmark deal to normalise their relations, despite months of
shuttle diplomacy by European Union mediators. str-ih/gw/jj
/ (ANSA-AFP).
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