Kosovo’s October Vote: Inclusion or Impunity?

Kosovo’s 12 October elections test democracy itself: end Belgrade’s proxy grip, safeguard Serb pluralism, enforce law fairly, and prevent ‘inclusion’ mutating into impunity that crushes integration.

Kosovo heads toward municipal elections on 12 October with far more at stake than control of local services. The vote will help decide whether the country finally breaks a decade-long cycle in which Belgrade’s proxy, ‘Srpska Lista’ (Serbian List), dominates Serb-majority municipalities and distorts democratic life, or whether space opens for pluralism and genuine integration of Kosovo Serbs into the state. President Vjosa Osmani has formally set the date¹; the context is a fragile post-parliamentary stalemate and a public weary of pressure, boycotts and episodic violence.

This story has a chronology and a ledger. In 2021, EU election observers praised the technical conduct of the local polls but recorded² a political reality that has barely shifted: Srpska Lista “dominates the municipal assemblies in the Kosovo-Serb majority municipalities, in some of them being the only political force.” That dominance is not neutral; it narrows the field to one party tightly steered from Belgrade and s…