Subject: Thaci's PDK claims Rugova supporters "stole" votes
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 10:21:00 PST
From: C-afp@... (AFP)
Organization: Copyright 2000 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
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PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Oct 30 (AFP) - Hashim Thaci's Democratic
Party of Kosovo (PDK) claimed Monday that supporters of Ibrahim
Rugova's LDK had "stolen" votes and intimidated PDK supporters in
Kosovo's municipal election.
Bilal Sherifi, the chief of the party's election commission,
told journalists that in seven municipalities, "the vote was stolen
from the PDK by various forms of manipulation."
Thaci vowed to respect the results of the poll, due to be
announced by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in
Europe (OSCE) late Monday, but at his side, Sherifi reeled off a
list of complaints.
If the complaints were taken into account, Sherifi said, the PDK
would win 40 percent of the vote. Officials close to the count have
predicted that the PDK will win only 25 percent, with Rugova's
Democratic League of Kosovo clearly ahead with 60 percent.
"LDK activists, by direct pressure and armed threats ... in an
arrogant manner, stole votes, by different means of manipulation,
and clearly influenced the results of the election," Sherifi said.
"Members of the LDK working under the mantle of the OSCE openly
influenced voters in suggesting they vote LDK," he alleged, "In
certain voting stations it was said that here you can only vote
LDK."
Sherifi said that in the municipalities of Prizren, Lipljan,
Malisevo, Orahovac and Vitina LDK manipulation had prevented a PDK
victory.
"The PDK recognises the final results of these elections," Thaci
said, "The PDK will participate in municipal assemblies and will
give its ideas on how to solve various problems."
Kosovo's first fully democratic municipal election was held on
Saturday under the guidance of the UN administration which has
governed the province since the end of NATO's air war against
Yugoslavia in June 1999.
The poll was the first test of whether Thaci's prestige as the
former political leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which mounted
a guerrilla rebellion against Yugoslav rule in 1998, would be enough
to overcome Rugova's massive popularity.