ECAP rejects PDK's request for re-election in South Mitrovica

2025-11-14 20:16:50, Kosova & Bota CNA

The Electoral Complaints and Appeals Panel (ECAP) on Friday rejected a request by the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) to repeat the elections for mayor of South Mitrovica following allegations of irregularities.

The ECAP stressed that the PDK's request was "unfounded", adding that this party "has not presented evidence to prove these irregularities".

The race for South Mitrovica was won in the runoff on November 9 by Faton Peci of the Vetëvendosje Movement, with 53.47% of the vote, against Arian Tahiri of the PDK, who received 46.53% of the vote, with a margin of 2,315 votes.

A day after the runoff vote, PDK and Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) commissioners in South Mitrovica withdrew from the vote verification process amid suspicions of abuse.

These commissioners had encountered ballots with a polling station code that did not match the polling station they came from. It was later discovered that there were 75 such ballots.

By order of the prosecutor's office, the verification was stopped and resumed only a day later, again by decision of the prosecutor's office.

Shortly after the verification of votes, the Central Election Commission (CEC) approved a recommendation to establish a commission for the evaluation of ballots and matching their numbers at polling stations in South Mitrovica.

The PDK complained to the ECAP that, in addition to ballots being found mixed between different classes and schools, in violation of the unique polling station codes, voter turnout in the runoff was higher than in the first round on October 12.

She also complained that during the counting process, many unstamped ballots were found, while some others were found to be stamped twice.

The ECAP added that PDK's claims are unfounded, given that the CEC has formed a commission to verify suspicious ballots, and that the company responsible for printing them has clarified that it is a "technical error."

Earlier, the Slovenian company CETIS said that it had conducted a full investigation and that "the problem occurred only in one of the four printer heads that prints the polling station number, while the control system only monitors the serial number (QR code), so the error was not detected during printing."

The ECAP assessed that there was no violation of the integrity of the elections.

"Since the existing evidence shows that there was only a technical error in the ballot code at the polling station, while the serial number and other elements that were necessary for the security of the ballot existed on each ballot."/ REL