People who don’t vote aren’t represented

Serbia today reportedly sought annulment of the November 3 municipal election in all of northern Kosovo. That did not happen.  In a meeting of Prime Ministers Dacic and Thaci with EU mediator Katherine Ashton today, it was confirmed that polling will be repeated only in the three polling places in north Mitrovica where ballots were destroyed, as decided by the Kosovo electoral commission.

Low turnout in the other municipalities and early closure of the polls due to intimidation were not good reasons to repeat the election elsewhere.  That would only have encouraged a repetition of the successful violent attack the first time around.  Low turnout does not invalidate democratic elections.

Prime Minister Dacic is warning that if Serbs don’t come out to vote at the rerun they could end up with an Albanian mayor.  That’s not a line calculated to promote reconciliation, but he has a point.  People who don’t vote aren’t represented.

A decent do-over December 1 in north Mitrovica at the three most affected pollling stations will likely be enough to get Serbia a date to open accession negotiations.  That decision will be made later in December, but the date for accession talks may be well into 2014.  Brussels is in no rush, and it will want to be certain that Belgrade is doing everything it can to crack down on the miscreants who ruined what otherwise might have been an okay election day.

Pristina is coming out of this election day with a point or two in its favor, so far.  It could not be held responsible for the attack on the polling stations, or even the failure of the police force, still only nominally under its command, to respond quickly and effectively.  Low turnout likely favored the more moderate candidates among the Serbs and even non-Serbs.  It will be four years before any distortions in the three northernmost municipalities can be corrected.  That gives time and space for the kind of generous approach to integration, already used successfully south of the Ibar river, that is called for.

Props to the EU for helping to settle this mess quickly, and to the Kosovo electoral commission for a wise decision.