Preliminary results confirm Thaqi as winner of Kosovo elections

Nov 19, 2007, 17:45 GMT

Pristina - According to the first official preliminary results of the Kosovo elections released on Monday, former guerrilla politician Hashim Thaci's Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) is the clear victor with 36 per cent of the votes cast on Saturday.

Though the preliminary results confirmed the PDK victory, the final official tallies were not expected for another ten days.

The win for PDK ousts Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu's Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), the largest party in the southern Serbian province.

The preliminary results stated that the LDK ended up with 21 per cent of the vote, with the drop in popularity correlating heavily with the fact that the Kosovo independence promised by the party has yet to be obtained.

However, the LDK is expected to form the government coalition along with the PDK.

Thaqi called on Monday for the swift formation of a stable government coalition in light of the approaching deadline of talks regarding the breakaway Serbian province's future status.

Status negotiations led by an international troika of mediators from the United States, European Union and Russia are ongoing between Belgrade and Pristina.

The turnout for Saturday's elections was a record low of just 40 to 45 per cent of the electorate, which analysts attribute to Kosovo's elusive independence, along with other problems such as staggering unemployment and poverty rates.

The Serbian minority community in Kosovo largely boycotted the elections on the recommendation of Belgrade, which does not recognize Kosovo's elections or political leaders.

Some 50,000 Serbs in the northern enclave of Kosovska Mitrovica and several tens of thousands of others scattered elsewhere in the province fear that they would be driven out of an independent Kosovo by the overhelming ethnic Albanian majority.

Belgrade wants to retain sovereignty of the province which has since 1999 only nominally been Serbian. Kosovo's Albanian majority expects nothing less than independence once the deadline for the talks expires on December 10.

Thaqi has since the elections reiterated Pristina's intentions of proclaiming independence unilaterally, shortly after December 10.

Kosovo has been under United Nations administration since a NATO- led bombing to end ethnic conflicts pushed Serbian forces out of the province in 1999.

Saturday's elections were the third since a UN administration and a NATO peacekeeping force assumed control over Kosovo.