Report on the Kosovo elections by Dr. David Chandler, British Helsinki Human Rights Group, 28 November 2001.
Faking Democracy and Progress in Kosovo 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. (1) 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. (cont'd)
