Power-sharing deal brings hope o divided Serbian town

22 Oct 2010 / 02:38
Serbian and Albanian parties have finally agreed to rule jointly in ethnically divided Bujanovac, ending a dangerous stalemate in South Serbia’s largest town.
By Nikola Lazic
Serbs and Albanians have finally agreed on a deal to share power in the town of Bujanovac, bringing new hope that ethnic tensions will now ease in Serbia’s deep south.The South Serbia region, close to Kosovo, saw armed conflict in 2000, pitting security forces against the ethnic Albanian insurgents.

The conflict ended in June 2001 through the mediation of NATO and the international community.

The agreement signed on October 21 ends a long-running standoff that has polarised community relations in the town.

Politicians from both communities admitted that finalising the agreement was influenced by promises of new investment in a region burdened by poverty as well as ethnic tension.

The agreement comes a full two-and-a-half years after local elections were held in May 2008, since when ethnic Albanian parties had attempted to govern the municipality alone.

Both Serbia’s government and representatives of the international community had urged the two communities to share power locally in the interests of regional stability.

Forming a multiethnic authority in Bujanovac forms a part of a broader agreement signed between the Coordination Body, Riza Halimi, the only Albanian MP in Serbia’s parliament, as a representative of the Albanian parties and the OSCE in March 2009.

This agreement aims to lure ethnic Albanians into the Coordination Body for Southern Serbia, a government institution formed in 2001 with a task of mediating between the Albanian majority in the region and Belgrade.

Shaip Kamberi, mayor of Bujanovac, hailed the new agreement, saying power sharing would ease ethnic tension and bring economic progress.

“Together we will have better access to international funds and to financing from the [Serbian] republic’s budget,” said Kamberi, member of the Party of Democratic Action, led by Riza Halimi, the only Albanian MP in Serbia’s parliament.

“The situation till now was unsustainable,” he told Balkan Insight.The town’s local assembly has 41 seats. Three Albanian parties won a narrow majority of 23 in the 2008 elections. Serbian parties won 17 and one went to the Roma.I

n earlier negotiations on sharing power, Albanian parties said they would not cooperate with the Socialist Party of Serbia, once led by Serbia’s former strongman, Slobodan Milosevic, which today forms part of the ruling coalition in Serbia.

Nor would they work with the hardline nationalist Serbian Radical Party, led by Vojislav Seselj, currently in The Hague on trial for war crimes.

This is why the local authority will be augmented from the Serbian side only by the three deputies of the centrist Democratic Party, led by Serbia’s President, Boris Tadic, and by three representatives of a citizens’ group, led by a former mayor of Bujanovac, Stojanca Arsic.

A year after the conflict ended in South Serbia, in July 2002, early local elections delivered ethnic Albanians a majority in the Bujanovac assembly for the first time and the town got its first Albanian mayor.

Serbs shared power locally at the time but the arrangement did not survive the 2008 elections, after which Serbian leaders demanded a 40-per-cent share of power, proportionate to the number of votes that Serbian parties had won.

Under the new deal, Serbs will take the posts of deputy assembly speaker and mayor’s assistant. They will also hold four of the 11 other posts in the municipal government, three head positions in municipal management and two directorial posts in local state-owned companies.

Arsic, the former mayor, said the Serbian side had got the maximum that it could.

“This is good news for the Serbian community who will have representatives in power in future,” he said. “This is very important, as we know that Albanians now comprise the majority here.

“Both we and the Albanians have been rigid in our stances but that’s behind us now,” Arsic added. “We are ready to work for the benefit of us all.”

Albanian representatives said that in return they expected the government to meet its promises about the full integration of Albanians into state institutions.

Mayor Kamberi noted that the power-sharing deal formed part of the broader agreement with the OSCE on Albanians entering the Coordination Body for Southern Serbia.

“We expect the state to show good will when it comes to integrating Albanians into its structures,” Kamberi said.

Albanians were not satisfied with their current representation in the judiciary, police and state companies, he added.

“We’ve demonstrated a high level of flexibility in making this deal with the Serbian side and I expect the state to respond in kind,” Kamberi said.

Jonuz Musliu, speaker of the local assembly and president of the Movement for Democratic Progress, also hailed the agreement.

“This is an important step in calming down the tensions that have existed since the armed conflict [in 2000],” he said.

“Albanians have demonstrated good will and expect Belgrade to do the same,” he added. Asked why the agreement had waited so long, he told Balkan Insight:

“Good things don’t happen fast.”

Sima Gazikalovic, vice-president of the Coordination Body, said the process of integrating Albanians into state institutions was being carried out according to the 2001 plan adopted by the international community and the Serbian government.

He admitted there had been delays but said the process was now on track.

“Albanians should be patient and realise that time we can’t correct all the injustices of decades in a short time,” Gazikalovic said.

Another problem, he added, was that Albanians did not always have the expertise for all the positions they demanded.

“Since 2001, through the Coordination Centre, the state has invested close to 70 million euro in Southern Serbia, much more than in any other part of the county, which says enough about its care for the region,” Gazikalovic continued.

Sasa Pesic, from the Democratic Party in Bujanovac, said he hoped the new local authority would attract local and foreign investment and so secure the area’s economic recovery.

Miodrag Milkovic, from the citizens group led by Arsic, agreed.
“Western ambassadors on their visits to South Serbia have told us they expect investors to come in if we form a multiethnic authority,” Milkovic said.“So far, they’ve refused to invest here on the grounds of the poor political situation,” he added.

“But now that obstacle is removed, and we expect capital to arrive.”Not all local Serbian representatives are entirely satisfied with the arrangements on the division of power.

Nenad Mitrovic from the opposition nationalist Serbian Progressive Party, led by Tomislav Nikolic, says Serbs sacrificed too much in the interests of reaching a deal.

“The Serbian side is entitled to 42 per cent of the power, which is how much it won at the elections,” he complained, “but they have given that [goal] up.”Nikola Lazic is a journalist from Bujanovac.

This article was published with the support of the British embassy in Belgrade as part of BIRN's Training and Reporting Project.

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