The new chairman of the Serbian List is elected

2023-10-24 13:19:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Zlatan Ellek has been unanimously elected the new chairman of the Serbian List in Kosovo. Ellek is acting director of the Clinical Hospital Center in North Mitrovica.

He was elected during an open vote at the session of the Assembly of the Serbian List held on Tuesday in North Mitrovica, where the Serbian List also elected the new presidency. The leader of the Serbian List until now was Goran Raki?.

Lista Serbe is the largest party of Serbs in Kosovo, which has the support of Belgrade.

These changes in the party's leadership are taking place after the events in Banjska near Zvecan in northern Kosovo on September 24, when an armed Serb group attacked the Kosovo police and killed Sergeant Afrim Bunjaku. In the ensuing exchange of fire, three more Serb attackers were killed.

Five days later, the then vice-president of the Serbian List, Millan Radoicic, took responsibility for this attack and resigned from that position. He is being investigated, both in Kosovo and in Serbia.

These changes follow the readiness of the Serbian List, expressed on October 13, to participate in the elections under the organization of the Kosovo institutions in the municipalities in the north, after having boycotted them in April 2023. At that time, in four municipalities in north, North Mitrovica, Zubin Potok, Zveçan and Leposaviq were elected Albanian mayors.

The April elections were held after the collective withdrawal of Serbian officials from local and central institutions in November 2022, due to dissatisfaction with a decision of the Government of Kosovo regarding the re-registration of illegal Serbian license plates in those of the RKS-Republic of Kosovo .

Miodrag Marinkovi? from the non-governmental organization Center for Affirmative Social Actions, believes that the new people in the Serbian List will say "practically nothing" and believes that this party will surely remain influential due to the support of Belgrade.

"We can see this from the governance of the Serbian Progressive Party in Serbia, in which the leading people in the party are replaced because they have been discredited by a series of affairs. I think this is what is happening to the Serbian List. It is only an attempt at 'rebranding' but not a fundamental change", he says.

Even the Serbian politician from Graçanica, Branimir Stojanovi?, believes that any change within the Serbian List will be formal, that is, it will not bring "substantial changes".

"Therefore, it is important for our people to understand that enough is enough with this formality... I believe that our people will appreciate very well that all the changes that will take place are simply 'washing away' a corrupt mechanism, which is difficult to be changed", said Stojanovic in a statement for "REL".

Stojanovi? and the political activist from the north of Kosovo, Millija Bishevac, are forming a new party that will be an "alternative to the Serbian List".

It is about the Serbian People's Movement party, which, according to Stojanovi?, will act and "represent the interests of Serbs in all areas inhabited by a Serb majority in Kosovo"./ REL