Sunday's elections in Kosovo may have been simply to elect councillors and mayors for local government, but they had a far wider significance. Thus the unsatisfactory outcome in the northern Serb-dominated part of the country will be causing widespread concern, not least in the Serbian capital Belgrade. For a start, the polls were marred by violence in and around Mitrovica with masked armed thugs barging their way into polling stations, beating up voters and officials and smashing ballot boxes. It is generally assumed that these ruffians were ethnic Serbs. Not only was this a clear attempt to disrupt the electoral process, but it was almost certainly part of a wider plan to scare fellow Serb voters away from the voting stations. And it is clear that this program of intimidation and sabotage has worked. Hardly any of those among the 110,000 ethnic Serbs entitled to vote in the north of the country, bothered to exercise their right. Though they now only comprise something over five percent of the total population of Kosovo, they are still in the majority in a few areas. It was seen as crucial, not simply by the Kosovar government in Pristina but also by the Serbian government in Belgrade, that the elections were seen to be free and fair and produce a representative result. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) had gone to considerable lengths to help organize the vote. Beyond giving technical assistance, it had provided officials for each of the polling stations. However after the attacks on three voting centers in Mitrovica, it withdrew its people and the stations were shut down. Belgrade had been using all its influence to convince ethnic Serbs to take part in the democratic process. This campaign had as much to do with Serbia's own delicate negotiations to become a member of the European Union, as it did with a devotion to the principles of democracy. The Serbian government wants to focus on its own affairs and leave ethnic Serbs beyond its borders to either integrate with the countries in which they live, or move to Serbia. The problem is that ethnic Serbs outside their homeland continue to feel more Serb than the Serbs. They have never reconciled themselves to the new geopolitical realities of Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Macedonia. Once upon a time, he nationalist dictatorship of Slobodan Milosevic gave them every encouragement in their revanchism. But Serbia itself has moved on, leaving these isolated communities such as that in Kosovo, where a refusal to accept the fundamental changes bring festering discontent. The Kosovar government, working with the OSCE has done all it can, and then some, to try and persuade the country's ethnic Serbs to embrace their new future. Yet it seems that the stubborn voice of unreason has triumphed again. Kosovar Serbs reckon that they will be able to claim that since they had no part in the election, the new local councils do not represent them and they can therefore ignore them. This cannot be allowed to happen. However, rather than risk the violent confrontation that local Serb extremists desire, fresh talks involving all sides and focusing on moderate ethnic Serbs, have to restart, to find a compromise deal that will lance this dangerous boil, that threatens Serbia's future, every bit as much as that of Kosovo.
