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Rugova Wins Kosovo Election But Needs Coalition Partner
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Nov 25 (News Agencies) - The party of moderate Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova has won Kosovo's elections but will it have to find a coalition partner before it can control the province's first post-war parliament.
Rugova's Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) won 45.70 percent of votes, or 47 seats, officials of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the U.N. mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) said Saturday.
Daan Everts, the head of the OSCE mission in Kosovo, which sponsored the elections, said the November 17 poll was of a "very high quality".
"These elections reflect the will of the people and are all inclusive," Everts said.
The party of former ethnic Albanian leader Hashim Thaci, the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), won 26 seats while the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) of Ramush Haradinaj, a former regional commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) won eight seats in the elections.
The Coalition for Return, the Serb political grouping, won 22 seats to become the third political force in the U.N.-run southern Serbian province.
Four other minor Kosovo Albanian parties gained one seat each, while 13 deputies would be appointed from the minority Bosnian, Gypsy and Turkish communities.
UNMIK chief Hans Haekkerup said the assembly was to convene on December 10.
If Rugova's party fails to find a partner in parliament, a second round of voting will be held in which a simple majority will suffice.
Haekkerup said that it was not in his powers to tell the political parties to form coalitions.
"Our role stops with the calling of the inaugural session and making sure that the presidency is elected. Then it is in the hands of the president of the assembly to proceed", Haekkerup said.
Kosovo's president will be charged with nominating a prime minister who will then try to form a government.
The LDK can rely on the support of two small ethnic Albanian parties but they are only expected to have one seat each.
Most observers expected the LDK to join with Haradinaj's AAK, but its eight seats may not be enough for Rugova. Haradinaj has also said his party would only join an LDK coalition if Thaci's party, Rugova's chief rival, is also a member.
Likewise Thaci, the former KLA political leader, is only prepared to join a Rugova coalition if it includes the party of Haradinaj.
The two parties, both offshoots of the KLA, are competing for the same electorate, and neither wants to leave the other as the main voice of the opposition.
Another alternative for Rugova, who led a campaign of passive resistance against the former Belgrade regime of Slobodan Milosevic regime before becoming politically marginalized with the emergence of the KLA, is to approach the parties representing the minorities.
The latest option seemed to exist only on paper - an alliance with the Serb Coalition for Return is almost unimaginable.
Two and a half years after the end of the 1998-99 war in Kosovo, leaders of the Albanian majority and Serb minority are a long way from forming any kind of political alliance.
However, the LDK could also simply find partners for individual issues, as the most sensitive decisions are made by the UNMIK, which remains the ultimate authority in the province.
Haekkerup will retain the power to block any moves he deems are contrary to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244 of June 1999, which ended the war in Kosovo and which governs all actions of UNMIK and the NATO force in Kosovo.
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