[Prishtina-E] Report from British Helsinki Human Rights Group

[Jeton Ademaj]

Hi all

what follows is a report from a general critic of the Kosova War, but it 
includes interesting summations of the current poltical dynamic in K...

http://www.bhhrg.org/faking_democracy_and_progress_in1.htm

Faking Democracy and Progress in Kosovo -

BHHRG Report on the Provincial Elections, 17 November 2001


1. Background

“This was an extraordinary election.”[i] The pronouncement of US Ambassador 
Daan Everts, OSCE Mission chief, running the elections was very apt. These 
elections were truly extraordinary in many respects.

One extraordinary aspect is that they were held in a legal vacuum. Kosovo is 
neither an independent state nor any longer under the government of Serbia 
or the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The question of statehood is to be 
postponed to the indefinite future while the United Nations assumes the 
responsibility for governing the province, through the UN Mission in Kosovo 
(UNMIK) headed by the Secretary-General’s Special Representative (SGSR) the 
former Danish foreign minister, Hans Haekkerup.

The provincial government elected on 17 November reflects this lack of 
international legal framework. The new post-election arrangements are 
outlined in a document titled ‘A Constitutional Framework for Provisional 
Self-Government in Kosovo’.[ii] This is not a constitution but a ‘framework’ 
for a constitution and not self-government but ‘provisional’ 
self-government. The ill-defined legal and political status of the former 
Yugoslav province, reflects Western powers’ diminished respect for state 
sovereignty and the crumbling formal framework of international legal and 
political equality.

Kosovo is an ‘extraordinary’ political experiment because the system of 
‘dual power’ of an international governing administration alongside a 
subordinate, domestically-elected administration, which developed in an ad 
hoc manner in Bosnia-Herzegovina, is here for the first time officially 
institutionalised. The new framework for a ‘constitution’ of Kosovo, is the 
first modern political constitution to explicitly rule out democracy. The 
preamble states that the ‘will of the people’ is to be relegated to just one 
of many ‘relevant factors’ to be taken into account by the international 
policy-makers.[iii]

The executive and legislative powers of the UN Special Representative remain 
unaffected by the new constitutional framework. Chapter 8 of the framework 
lists the powers and responsibilities reserved for the international 
appointee, which include the final authority over finance, the budget and 
monetary policy, customs, the judiciary, law enforcement, policing, external 
relations, public property, communications and transport, housing, municipal 
administration, and the appointment of regulatory boards and commissions. 
And, of course, the power to dissolve the elected assembly if Kosovo’s 
representatives do not show sufficient ‘maturity’ to agree with his 
edicts.[iv]

2. Sham Elections

Many international plenipotentiaries, including US President George Bush, 
Nato Secretary-General Lord George Robertson and United Nations 
Secretary-General Kofi Annan, urged the Kosovo public to turn out to vote, 
particularly the Kosovo Serbs. When it emerged that around 60% of the 
Albanian and 50% of the Serb voters had taken part, the elections were 
loudly hailed by the international organisers and observers to be a 
‘glorious day in the history of Kosovo’ and as a ‘huge success’.[v] The 
question of why the international community chose to spend millions of 
dollars holding elections for a provincial administration with token 
office-holders with highly circumscribed powers was, unfortunately, rarely 
asked.

These elections were extraordinary in the importance attached to them, not 
just because of the lack of power awarded to the victors, but also the fact 
that the results were largely irrelevant once the electoral ‘engineering’ of 
the OSCE and UNMIK was taken into account. The largest party, the Democratic 
League of Kosovo (LDK), led by Ibrahim Rugova, which won 46% of the votes, 
would not have been able to form the government even if they had won a 
land-slide victory. This was because the seats in the seven-member 
presidency and positions in the new ministries were already divided in a 
fixed ratio in advance. For example, the largest party and second largest 
party, the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) under Hashim Thaci, with 25% of 
the votes, were to have two seats in the presidency with the third party 
holding one seat, the two remaining seats were reserved for Serb and other 
minorities. This system of dividing the seats before the elections made the 
international pressure on Belgrade to encourage Kosovo Serbs to vote, in 
order that they might have more of a say in the future of the province, 
rather bizarre. The Serb community was already guaranteed 10 reserved seats 
in the 120 seat assembly, a seat on the presidency and at least one of the 
nine ministries, regardless of whether any Serbs voted at all.

I was monitoring the Kosovo elections on behalf of the British Helsinki 
Human Rights Group with the official international observation mission of 
the Council of Europe. It did not take long to see why the extravagant hype 
had taken over from the mundane reality of the elections. At the start of 
the Council of Europe observer training, Lord Russell Johnstone, the 
President of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, put the elections 
in the broader context of international intervention today. ‘The 
international community needs to prove that intervention was benign [in 
Kosovo and East Timor] and will create better conditions. These elections 
are a proving exercise.’ Lord Johnstone is probably correct to see the 
November elections as little more than a ‘proving exercise’ for the 
international institutions involved in the violation of Yugoslav sovereignty 
and the promotion of ‘military humanitarianism’ in Afghanistan and 
elsewhere. This would seem to be confirmed in the stated concern of the OSCE 
organisers to achieve an election that made the international mission appear 
‘legitimate and credible’.[vi]

Bearing in mind the international importance of the ‘success’ of the Kosovo 
elections, the ‘independent’ observation mission of the Council of Europe 
claims that the provincial elections were ‘free and fair’ should not 
necessarily be taken at face value.[vii] It is highly doubtful that these 
elections would have been passed as ‘free and fair’ had they taken place 
outside the international supervision of the OSCE. The election conditions, 
in which there was a complete absence of freedom of movement for minority 
communities, and many of the OSCE election regulations covering the media 
and political parties, failed to meet basic internationally accepted 
standards, such as those laid out in the OSCE’s 1990 Copenhagen Declaration 
on Democracy and Political Pluralism.[viii] The following sections compare 
the claims of the OSCE against the reality of Kosovo in more depth.

3. Creating Multi-Ethnic Society?

Without visiting the region it is difficult for outside observers to imagine 
the depth of fear and insecurity which pervades the province despite more 
than two years of government by the international community’s expansive 
‘peace-building’ mission. There has been a highly restricted number of Serb 
and minority returns to Kosovo, and the UNHCR estimates that since the UNMIK 
administration took over more minorities may have left the province than 
returned.[ix] One reason for this is that Serb and other ethnic minorities 
still have no freedom of movement in Kosovo. The lack of movement could be 
seen when we visited the allegedly multi-ethnic ‘zone of confidence’ in 
Mitrovica, which has no Serb minority and is basically a Bosnian Muslim 
settlement policed by a 24-hour UNMIK armed guard. Or when we walked further 
along the Ibar to the uninhabited ruins of the Roma ‘Malhalla’, formally the 
largest Roma settlement in the Balkans, destroyed after the war. It is not 
yet possible for any of the 7,000 former residents to return in safety.

The ethnic-apartheid ruled over by UNMIK also had a direct impact on the 
election campaign and election monitoring. The Council of Europe election 
observation teams were told not to enter minority Serb or Albanian areas 
within their allocated municipalities because it would be too dangerous for 
their drivers and interpreters. Apart from indicating the complete 
separation of the Serb and Albanian communities, this instruction also meant 
that the ‘independent’ observers had a highly restricted view of the 
elections. One further impact of the lack of security for ethnic minorities 
was the fact that the voters’ list, the basic tool to guide election 
campaigning, was considered to be sensitive information. The voters’ list 
was not available to be used by political parties and could only be 
consulted if no notes or photographs were taken, making full transparency 
impossible.[x]

Far from admitting to the failures of the Nato intervention or the 
subsequent ‘peace-building’ programmes of the UNMIK administration, and the 
ethnic-apartheid, which is in place, the OSCE had boasted that the elections 
were overcoming ethnic divisions. One reason for this statement was that 
there were allegedly minority members on the polling station committees.  I 
was observing in the north of the Mitrovica area, in Leposavic, a 
moderate-dominated Serb area, I saw no minority committee members and asked 
an OSCE polling station supervisor if the policy had been dropped. He 
replied that the polling station committee were all minority community 
members as they were all Serbs. Classifying mono-ethnic polling station 
committees as minority ones makes the OSCE election organisation look 
artificially multi-ethnic. This artificial ‘engineering’ to create 
multi-ethnic institutions on paper is also promoted as an important outcome 
of the elections themselves. Every level of government, including the 
Presidency, the Ministries and the Assembly will have reserved places for 
minority community members. These minority members will be bussed in to 
meetings from minority enclaves under heavy military guard. Multi-ethnic 
government will be created by edict, but this will not reflect the divided 
society, nor help to break down inter-ethnic barriers. The insecurities of 
minority and majority communities are not caused by ignorance or irrational 
prejudice but by rational concerns that the artificial and temporary nature 
of the current settlement imposed by UNMIK can not be sustainable.

The lack of refugee return and poor treatment of non-Albanian minority 
communities, was one reason for the low turn-out in some minority areas of 
Kosovo, particularly in the Serbian enclave north of the Ibar river which 
divides the town of Mitrovica. At some polling stations turn-out was under 
10%.[xi] In Leposavic around a third of the 6,500 population were refugees. 
I visited the refugee centres for Roma and Serbs displaced from southern 
Kosovo. I spoke to Gushanig Skandir the head of the Roma camp, who showed us 
around the overcrowded and poorly funded site, where large families were 
forced to share single rooms and use outside toilet and washing facilities 
despite the winter cold.  He told me that after waiting three years their 
centre had received a new roof 20 days ago, he believed this international 
aid was because he encouraged the adults in the camp to register to vote and 
to encourage the Roma refugees to vote on election day. He was sceptical 
about the elections but felt the Roma might receive more aid from the 
international community if they voted. The following day I saw him at the 
polling station in the local school. Gushanig may have made the pragmatic 
choice to vote but many other refugees and displaced people in similar 
situations told us that voting could make no difference especially as the 
leading Serb representatives would have seats in the Assembly anyway.

In an attempt to portray the low turn-outs as unconnected to the lack of 
freedom of movement and alienation of minority communities, Daan Everts 
declared: ‘The only thing which marred what was a glorious day in Kosovo’s 
history was that some Serbs in the north of Kosovo were too intimidated by 
other people in their own community to come out and vote’.[xii] This claim 
was repeated on BBC World television, in international press headlines and 
in the post-election International Crisis Group report, which stated that 
‘the intimidation of would-be Serb voters marred the election in 
Serb-controlled region north of the Ibar river’.[xiii] The intimidation 
claims were news to the independent observers in the region. I attended the 
Mitrovica area debriefing for the Council of Europe observers after the 
elections and intimidation was not mentioned, the observation team for the 
north Mitrovica municipality received not one report of intimidation. At a 
post election party for internationals the mystery was clarified when I 
spoke to the OSCE regional trainer for the Mitrovica area who told me that 
his boss’s claims of intimidation were based on highly dubious allegations 
‘of people staring outside polling stations and looking inside them’.

4. Political Pluralism, Free Press and Civil Society?

The OSCE and UNMIK regard the Kosovo political parties as a hindrance rather 
than a help in addressing the problems of the province. They are seen to be 
lacking maturity and in need of ‘continuous support from the OSCE 
Democratization Department to enhance their organisational capacity and to 
increase their political and social possibilities to advocate for democratic 
changes’.[xiv] Daan Everts argued that the political parties were so out of 
touch that the international community was, in effect, more democratic and 
more representative of popular opinion. He stated that the OSCE needed to 
inform the political parties of the concerns of the people and to encourage 
them to respond to the demands of the electorate.[xv]

As part of the process of making political parties more ‘accountable’ there 
are a host of restrictive regulations of the political sphere. These include 
the fining of newspapers if they favour a major political party. Epoka e Re 
was fined DEM 1,000 for ‘a clear bias in favour of the PDK in its election 
political reporting’ while Bota Sot was fined DEM 2,750 for coverage which 
was favourable to the LDK.[xvi] I asked Lucia Scotton, the Council of 
Europe’s Mission in Kosovo’s media monitoring officer, how these fines 
squared with the OSCE’s claim to be encouraging a free and independent 
media. Her view was that although it was an international norm for a free 
press to take a political position favouring a particular party in election 
campaigns, the fines were ‘reasonable’ because the press in Kosovo was not 
professional or mature enough to act freely and independently yet.[xvii]

The OSCE Code of Conduct for political parties also breaches internationally 
accepted democratic norms by holding political parties responsible for the 
actions of their supporters.[xviii] I asked Adrian Stoop, the Chief 
Commissioner of the OSCE Election Complaints and Appeals Commission about 
whether this regulation complied with international standards.[xix] He 
replied that ‘In Holland this law would be unthinkable.’ He explained that 
the internationally-appointed Commissioners supported regulations which they 
would not accept in their own countries because the international 
administrators found it hard ‘to get a grip on what is happening’ and 
‘didn’t speak the language’. In order to give the international regulators 
greater control, the rules had to be more pragmatic and flexible to try to 
influence the political parties and the political climate.

The OSCE election ‘engineers’ also sought to limit the influence of the 
political parties once they got into power. Daan Everts stated at a training 
session for Council of Europe observers that ‘these elections force a 
certain degree of power-sharing’, undermining the power of the larger 
parties by restricting their positions and influence in the new 
institutions.[xx]  He added that the OSCE had learnt from the municipal 
elections last year ‘to impose a bit more’. The flexible ‘framework’ for a 
‘constitution’ allows the line between international and domestic 
responsibility to be easily blurred. Firstly, UNMIK has established 
‘international advisors’ for the President, Prime Minister and ministers and 
each ministry will also be overseen by an international ‘Principal Advisor’. 
Secondly, the functions reserved for the UN’s Special Representative are so 
vaguely defined that they cover much of the responsibilities ‘devolved’ to 
the nine ministries. However, in the true spirit of transparency and 
accountability the UNMIK spokesperson says that at this stage ‘it is hard to 
describe’ what powers will be needed to carry out these reserved 
functions.[xxi]

While the political parties were being restricted at least it appeared that 
one area of political life was booming, civil society. The growing strength 
of civil society was indicated by the fact that this year there was more 
than twice the number of domestic observers as last year, representing 1% of 
the electorate. Daan Everts described the elections as the ‘best monitored 
elections this century’.[xxii] In fact, according to the OSCE, there ‘could 
be the highest proportion of election observers to voters in the 
world’.[xxiii] One does not have to be a hardened cynic to wonder why 1% of 
the population would be so keen to observe the elections. I thought it would 
be interesting to find out. When I asked the NGO observers more about how 
they got involved I was surprised to find out that many did not know what 
‘their’ NGO did or what its’ initials stood for, and had got involved 
through being invited by a friend. This was particularly true for those 
observing on behalf of one of the best represented domestic NGOs, the KMDLNJ 
(Council for the Defence of Human Rights and Freedoms) based in Pristina. 
The reason the KMDLNJ had so many observers was probably because they were 
paying people DEM 80 to take part. CeSID a Serbian-based NGO with close 
links to the OTPOR student movement was paying people DEM 25 to observe. The 
other NGO observers were paid somewhere between the two.

The dynamism of civil society, like every other aspect of these elections 
was a fake. In the regional de-briefing back in Pristina, all the observers 
noted that the domestic observers were rather disinterested in the 
proceedings. It seems likely that the OSCE and its international sponsors’ 
actions of buying-in civil society NGOs will have little positive impact in 
the longer run. It hardly encourages people to take communal responsibility 
for democracy if people are paid half-a-month’s wages to ‘volunteer’ to be 
part of the democratic process. The statistics for domestic observers may 
have looked good on paper but the OSCE’s approach of artificially 
‘engineering’ the effect it wanted may only set back any genuine attempt to 
involve the Kosovo public in the political process. If civic NGO involvement 
is promoted as an election-related job, like interpreting and driving for 
the internationals, then this undermines, rather than promotes, the idea of 
voluntary civic engagement.

5. Conclusion

The November 17 elections in Kosovo were phoney in every major respect. They 
were phoney in that under the fiction of multi-ethnic government they helped 
legitimise a society that provides no normal existence for ethnic 
minorities, merely imprisonment in ethnic enclaves and military escorts to 
visit family cemeteries or former homes and villages. They were phoney in 
that through the fiction of ‘staring’ Serbs the responsibility for the low 
turn-out in some regions was seen to be the fault of minorities themselves, 
rather than the ethnic segregation overseen by the international community. 
They were phoney because under the guise of promoting media freedom and 
independence, freedom of expression and political debate were further 
restricted. They were phoney because under the guise of promoting political 
pluralism, majority rule was replaced by a consensus imposed by the UN’s 
Special Representative. They were phoney because under the fiction of a 
vibrant civil society the OSCE and its partners corrupted the process of 
encouraging civic engagement. Most importantly, they were phoney because 
under the fiction of democratic autonomy for the people of Kosovo, they 
legitimised a constitution that openly replaced the ‘popular will’ with the 
unaccountable power of an international protectorate.

The OSCE and UNMIK are celebrating the elections as a major international 
success. They may have secured some international legitimacy for their 
tin-pot protectorate and won kudos for their ‘success’ in encouraging 
‘democracy’ and ‘peace’ in Kosovo. However, phoney elections can only create 
phoney consultation bodies. The reduced election turn-out among the Albanian 
voters and the low turn-out for the Kosovo Serbs suggests that the domestic 
legitimacy of the international protectorate may be the real sticking point 
for the future.


This report was compiled by Dr David Chandler, Policy Research Institute, 
Leeds Metropolitan University. He is the author of Bosnia Faking Democracy 
After Dayton (Pluto Press, 1999, 2000) and From Kosovo to Kabul: Human 
Rights and International Intervention (Pluto Press, March 2002). He can be 
contacted at D.Chandler at lmu.ac.uk.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[i] ‘First Official Results in Kosovo Election Announced’, OSCE Mission in 
Kosovo (OMIK) Press Release, Pristina, 19 November 2001.

[ii] ‘A Constitutional Framework for Provisional Self-Government in Kosovo’, 
UNMIK/REG/2001/9, 15 May 2001.

[iii] ‘A Constitutional Framework for Provisional Self-Government in 
Kosovo’, UNMIK/REG/2001/9, 15 May 2001, p.4.

[iv] For further background information on the framework for provisional 
self-government, read: Simon Chesterman, Kosovo in Limbo: State-Building and 
“Substantial Autonomy”, International Peace Academy, August 2001. Available 
from: <http://www.ipacademy.org/>; Independent International Commission on 
Kosovo, The Follow-Up: Why Conditional Independence? September 2001. 
Available from: <http://www.kosovocommission.org/>; International Crisis 
Group, Kosovo Landmark Election, November 2001. Available from: 
<http://www.crisisweb.org>.

[v] ‘Kosovo’s Election Hailed a Huge Success’, OSCE Mission in Kosovo (OMIK) 
Press Release, Pristina, 17 November 2001.

[vi] International Crisis Group, Kosovo: Landmark Election, Balkans Report, 
No.120, Pristina/Brussels 21 November 2001, p.1.

[vii] ‘Kosovo Assembly Elections Bring Democracy Forward and Strengthen 
regional Stability’, Council of Europe Election Observation Mission in 
Kosovo Press Release, Pristina, 18 November 2001.

[viii] Document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human 
Dimension of the OSCE. Available from: <http://www.osce.org/docs>.

[ix] Interview with Leonard Zulu, Senior Protection Officer, UNHCR, 
Pristina, 13 November 2001.

[x] Information provided by Peter Urban, Director of Elections, OSCE, 
Council of Europe Training Programme, Pristina 13 November 2001.

[xi] Information provided by OSCE Spokesperson Claire Trevena, 21 November 
2001.

[xii] ‘Kosovo’s Election Hailed a Huge Success’, OSCE Mission in Kosovo 
(OMIK) Press Release, Pristina, 17 November 2001.

[xiii] Nicholas Wood, ‘Serbs “Face Threats at Polls”’, Observer, 18 November 
2001; International Crisis Group, Kosovo: Landmark Election, Balkans Report, 
No.120, Pristina/Brussels 21 November 2001, p.i.

[xiv] Kosovo’s Concerns: Voters’ Voices (Pristina: OSCE Mission in Kosovo, 
2001), p.iii.

[xv] Daan Everts, ‘Foreword’, Kosovo’s Concerns: Voters’ Voices (Pristina: 
OSCE Mission in Kosovo, 2001), p.iii.

[xvi] ‘Fines Given for Political Violence and Reporting Bias’, OSCE Mission 
in Kosovo (OMIK) Press Release, Pristina, 10 November 2001; ‘Newspaper 
Sanctioned for Photo’, OSCE Mission in Kosovo (OMIK) Press Release, 
Pristina, 16 November 2001.

[xvii] Interview, Pristina, 18 November 2001.

[xviii] ‘The Code of Conduct for Political Parties, Coalitions, Citizens’ 
Initiatives, Independent Candidates, Their Supporters and Candidates’, 
Electoral Rule No.1 1/2001, OSCE Mission in Kosovo, Central Election 
Commission. Available from: <http://www.osce.org/>.

[xix] At the Council of Europe Training Programme, Pristina, 13 November 
2001.

[xx] Speech at the Council of Europe Training Programme, Pristina, 13 
November 2001.

[xxi] UNMIK-OSCE-EU-UNHCR Press Briefing, 22 November 2001. UNMIK Unofficial 
Transcript.

[xxii] ‘Calls for Kosova’s Serbs to Vote’, RFE/RL Newsline, Vol.5, No.214, 
Part II, 9 November 2001.

[xxiii] ‘Plea to Election Observers: Be Patient’, OSCE Mission in Kosovo 
(OMIK) Press Release, Pristina, 9 November 2001.


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