Municipal  elections  to  be  held  on  28  October

The Head of UNMIK, Dr. Bernard Kouchner, has announced that Kosovo-wide municipal elections will be held on Saturday, 28 October 2000.
   
He said he took that decision on the recommendation of Ambassador Daan Everts, OSCE Chief of Mission and Chairman of the Central Election Commission, and exercising the authority under Security Council resolution 1244, as well as after consultation with the Interim Administrative Council.
   
Kosovars registered to vote during the registration campaign which ended in late July. On 28 October, they will elect members of 30 municipal assemblies. Nineteen political parties have been certified to take part in the elections, along with two coalitions, three citizens' initiatives and 15 independent candidates.
   
According to the electoral rule set by the Central Election Commission, during the 45 days prior to election day, all broadcast media should provide free and equitable access to air time to all political parties. The rule obliges contestants to disclose donations received in excess of DM 1,000 and imposes a campaign spending limit of DM 1 per voter in the municipality in which the party or candidate is running. This is to prevent flooding of the media with ads only from a few parties.
   
Those who registered will have a chance to check their details on the provisional voters' lists later this month as part of the standard process to finalize the voters' list.
   
Each of the 448 registration centres around Kosovo will have the provisional list of people eligible to vote there, available for inspection between Monday, 21 August, and Wednesday, 30 August. The centres will be open on a rotating basis from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. during those days, including Sunday, 27 August. In order to check the lists, people should go to the centre where they originally registered. In the majority of cases, this centre will also be their polling station on election day.
   
The aim of the ten-day Confirmation, Additions and Challenges (CAC) inspection period is to give registrants an opportunity to confirm that their own entries on the provisional voters' lists are correct.

SRSG launches series of direct meetings with Kosovars

Starting a series of planned meetings with residents of Kosovo to discuss directly with them their concerns, the Head of UNMIK, Dr. Bernard Kouchner, on 12 August held a town hall meeting in Vushtrri/Vucitrn. As he addressed a crowd of mainly young people in the municipal Culture Centre, the SRSG appealed to them to take part in the elections on 28 October with a spirit of tolerance, and without violence or crises.
   
"Free and fair elections are a big step towards democracy, towards the tolerance needed to build a Kosovo where all communities will live together, and with freedom of movement all over Kosovo," Dr. Kouchner said. "You have the duty to protect minorities. This is your problem and you must find a solution. This is the time to stop violence and build tolerance and confidence in the hearts of all Kosovars," he stressed.
   
The SRSG said that the first period of international presence in Kosovo was devoted to ending the humanitarian emergency, and now it was time to build the future of Kosovo. Some achievements have been made, including hundreds of thousands of refugees who returned after the war, and the resumption of public services, such as health infrastructure. Ninety per cent of the children of Kosovo are enrolled in school.
   
He said that participation in  elections was an opportunity for Kosovars to show the rest of the world that they are themselves involved in building democracy for the future of Kosovo.
   
Questions raised by residents related to security measures that UNMIK would use to ensure free and fair elections, travel documents, housing and property rights-a concern of refugees and displaced persons who lost their properties during the conflict, or of those who purchased a house or an apartment when that was prohibited by discriminatory laws.

Focus on communities

SRSG Dr. Bernard Kouchner on 11 August ended initial meetings with the non-Albanian and non-Serbian communities with an assurance that in future these meetings would be held once a month. The first meeting was held with the Bosniac and Gorani representatives on 9 August, the second with the Roma, Egyptian and Hashkali representatives on 10 August, and the third with the Turkish community on 11 August.
   
The meetings helped the SRSG to gain first-hand knowledge on issues of concern to these communities: security, freedom of movement, use of their language and education of their children. To address these concerns, follow-up steps will be taken, including regular meetings at the political level with JIAS structures. These contacts will seek to address specific issues, such as access to public services and employment in the public sector, and economic and social issues.

KTC briefed on elections

The Kosovo Transitional Council (KTC) on 9 August discussed preparations for elections. Deputy SRSG Daan Everts said political parties had submitted lists of candidates which were being reviewed by the OSCE to see if candidates met the criteria for eligibility. About 30 per cent of the candidates were women. The Central Election Commission will take a final decision on the lists by 18 August. He regretted that no Serbian party had registered for the elections.
 
Behxet Brajshori and Peter Schumann, co-heads of the Department of Public Services, briefed the KTC on the progress in setting up the Joint Interim Administrative Structure. Brajshori said most departments had been officially established. The initial difficulty of finding qualified international and Kosovar staff for the departments was being overcome, though the situation was still not satisfactory due to paucity of funds.

Briefs...

Public health campaign addresses lead threat

A public health awareness campaign to address the rising level of lead detected in the air and blood of people living and working in the Mitrovica area, particularly downstream of the Zvecan lead smelter, was launched by UNMIK on 8 August. Recent measurements have shown that the amounts of lead in the air there are some 200 times more than those recommended as acceptable by WHO. Blood tests on some KFOR soldiers and UNMIK Police have also revealed high levels of lead. The Zvecan smelter, which restarted operation in June, is in need of air pollution controls and filters. The local population is being advised on the dangers posed by that phenomenon, particularly to pregnant women, children, people living in areas of highest lead concentration and smelter workers. The awareness campaign will be followed by a comprehensive programme to identify and assess the level of exposure by monitoring blood levels in vulnerable groups. A new special unit for blood testing in the Pediatrics Hospital in northern Mitrovica is now open to the public.

IAC endorses Department of Public Utilities

The Interim Administrative Council (IAC) on 11 August endorsed the draft regulation on the establishment of the Department of Public Utilities, which will be signed by the SRSG and become law. The department will handle the overall management oversight and regulation of matters relating to public utilities in Kosovo, including natural gas supply, electricity, heat, water supply, waste collection and disposal, as may be provided by public, private and other enterprises and institutions. The IAC also discussed the draft regulation on the import, sale and distribution of pharmaceutical products, including narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances. In addition, it reviewed progress on the draft regulation amending Regulation 1999/27 on the approval of the Kosovo budget.

More judges named

An additional 139 judges and prosecutors and 309 lay judges-among them several members of minority communities-were appointed by SRSG Dr. Bernard Kouchner on 9 August. That brought to 405 the total number of local judges and prosecutors in Kosovo. The appointments were made to the Supreme Court, district, municipal and minor offences courts in each region, the Commercial Court and the High Court of Minor Offences, both in Pristina. Dr. Kouchner said a number of excellent candidates had been recommended but it was not possible to appoint all of them due to budgetary constraints. The first swearing-in ceremonies took place in Gjilan/Gnjilane and Mitrovicė/Mitrovica on 10 and 11 August, respectively. Similar events are scheduled for Pejė/Pec (16 August), Prizren (17 August) and  Pristinė/Pristina (mid-September).

Kosovo municipalities identified

Kosovo's 30 municipalities have been officially identified by UNMIK Regulation 2000/43, which came into force on 27 July. The new edict, entitled "On the Numbers, Names and Boundaries of Municipalities", is designed to clarify the identity of municipalities before the municipal elections on 28 October. Official communications should not contain any name for a municipality other than those listed in the regulation in the Albanian or Serbian languages, except for municipalities where other ethnic or linguistic communities form a substantial part of the population.

Road repair programme

The European Agency for Reconstruction has launched a road repair programme, designed to bring Kosovo's roads up to European standards. With a budget of DM 30 million for 2000, the project will concentrate on the reconstruction of some 220 km of road on three main axes in Kosovo: Pristina-Blace, Pristina-Pejė and the Tetovo road. Repairs are due to be finished by the end of November.

Another 318 police cadets graduate

Another class of 318 police cadets graduated from the OSCE-run Kosovo Police Service School on 12 August. It was the seventh class to graduate from the school since September 1999, bringing to 1,402 the total number of officers who have undergone police training. Of these new 318 cadets, 276 are Kosovo Albanian (of which 67 are women), 2 Bosniacs, 3 Gorani, 3 Muslim Slavs, 26 Kosovo Serbs (including 2 women) and 8 Kosovo Turks. The officers will now spend 17 weeks in in-service training and an additional 80 hours of classroom instruction.

House rebuilding beneficiaries

Selection of Kosovar families who will receive assistance from donors to reconstruct their houses should be completed by 20 August, according to an instruction issued by the JIAS Department of Reconstruction. Past this date, if municipal housing committees do not present final lists of beneficiaries, the implementing agencies will assume that initial lists, which they have compiled together with village representatives, are approved, and housing reconstruction will proceed. Property verification is also due to be carried out by 20 August. The selection process is a crucial stage in the Housing Reconstruction Programme for 2000 as it ensures that help goes directly to people who need it most. The EU already has funds to rebuild 8,000 houses.

Appointments

Jean Guinard, a retired French general, was appointed as new Regional Administrator for Pristina on 7 August. For the past eight years, Guinard worked in the French Prime Minister's office, overseeing relations between the army and civil service.
 
On 9 August, Simon Haselock of the United Kingdom was named Temporary Media Commissioner. With powers to monitor and regulate the operations of the Kosovo media, Haselock will be reviewing license applications and issuing licenses. He will also have sanctions at his disposal which could be imposed on a media outlet operating without a license or breaching Kosovo's broadcast and print codes. The sanctions range from seeking an apology or imposing a fine to a complete shutdown. The Temporary Media Commissioner's post was created pending the establishment of an Interim Media Commission..