OSCE Likely to Help Kosovo Serbs Vote in Serbian Poll

The OSCE mission in Kosovo said it is prepared to facilitate the process of enabling ethnic Serbs in Kosovo to vote in the Serbian general elections as soon as Belgrade and Pristina agree on the details."There is an expectation for the OSCE to carry out a process in Kosovo that would enable eligible voters to exercise their right in the context of Serbian parliamentary elections of 24 April," OSCE Pristina spokesperson Edita Bucaj told BIRN. "Consultations with the parties will clarify all outstanding issues," Bucaj added.In 2012 and 2014, the OSCE was tasked with collecting and distributing election material to polling stations and giving it to the Serbian authorities once the polls closed.The OSCE's role was a compromise solution after the Kosovo government refused to allow the Serbian Election Commission to organize elections in the country on the grounds that it violated the country's sovereignty. The OSCE then jumped in and did the job.This time, both Serbia and Kosovo seem prepared to repeat the process that was defined two years ago."Elections will be held the same way as in 2014", a spokesman for Serbia's Government Office for Kosovo, Ivan Jaksic, told BIRN, adding that voting would be organized with the help of OSCE."That was agreed in Brussels. The number of voting places is the only thing that needs to be agreed," Jaksic said."We have made no decision yet because consultations will be held in coming weeks, but we will act based on international practices," a Kosovo government Spokesperson, Arban Abrashi, told BIRN.Most ethnic Serbs in Kosovo are concentrated in the north of the country where they make up local majorities in several municipalities. More scattered communities exist in the south.Serbia still claims a theoretical right to organise elections in...