U Preševo not a single session of the Municipal Assembly has been held for nine months. The local government lost its majority, so a Provisional Authority was appointed, and this is not the first time.
The divisions among the local parties are growing, as is the uncertainty of who they will support citizens of Preševo to vote in local elections on June 2.
"It is a classic political fight between local political parties, i.e. the current president of the municipality, Šćiprim Arifi, and the opposition. This has been happening for years, in two mandates this is the third or fourth time that a temporary authority has been appointed and the government in Preševo cannot complete its mandate," Belzim Kamberi, a journalist from Preševo, told Vreme.
As Vremen's interlocutor explains, local parties accuse each other of cooperating with Belgrade.
"This has been happening since the nineties, and now it is an additional aggravating circumstance because the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Aljbin Kurti, started to get involved directly in the local politics of the Albanians." For example, he chose one of the traditional local parties as his partner, and that created a gap between other local Albanian parties," Kamberi said.
Aljbin Kurti and the Self-Determination Movement supported Shaip Kamberi from the Party for Democratic Action, the former mayor of Preševo, Ardita Sinani, from the same party, is currently Kurti's adviser, while the vice-president of the party, Ragmi Mustafa, is the adviser to Kurti's deputy, Besnik Bislimi.
According to Kamberi, previously there were two traditional parties in Presevo, Bujanovac and Medevdža, and since 2016 competition has intensified with the entry of Šćiprim Arifi's Alternatives for Change in local politics.
By the way, Arifi is originally from the village of Trnave in the municipality of Preševo, and was born in Germany. He came to the Presevo Valley in 2003, as stated in his biography, to live there and contribute to the development of this area. He was elected as the President of the Municipality of Preševo for the first time in 2016, in order to head the Provisional Authority the following year, and was elected for the second time as the President of the Municipality in 2018.
Without development and democracy
"The situation is the same as in the whole of Serbia as far as the stabilocracy is concerned. The entire south of Serbia is underdeveloped. But the process of integrating Albanians is blocked here, even more so than in 2012, when Vučić came to power," says Kamberi.
Bad relations between Belgrade and Pristina have a bad effect on the political situation in the municipalities of Preševo, Bujanovac and Medeveđa.
According to the current population census, from 2022, Albanians are the fourth most numerous national minority in Serbia, with around 62.000 members, most of whom are in the south of Serbia, precisely in the mentioned municipalities.
Due to the position of Albanians as an ethnic minority, the OSCE developed a seven-point plan that was adopted by the Government of Serbia in 2013. This document foresees the integration of Albanians into state institutions, the economic development of the municipalities of Bujanovac, Preševo and Medveđa, the security of this area, the right to the official use of the language, script and national symbols, the decentralization of the judiciary, the improvement of the rights of Albanians in the fields of education, culture and information, health and social protection.
Except in the municipalities where the Albanian population is the majority and in the Parliament of Serbia, representatives of the Albanian community claim that they are not in any other state institution.
"The relationship between minorities and the state also has an impact on local self-government. In principle, whoever is the mayor does not have a big influence on that," Kamberi said.
As our interlocutor claims, the former mayor of Presevo Arifi was not overthrown by Kurti or Vučić, but he himself lost the majority in the local parliament.
"The topic of the next local elections in Preševo and Bujanovac will probably be whether local people close to Aljbin Kurti will come to power." Kurti will probably support his candidates Ardita Sinani and Ragmi Mustafa, who are currently advisors to the Government in Pristina," explains Belgzim Kamberi.
Sinani and Mustafa are from the conservative Party for Democratic Action, Shaip Kamberi.
Nine months without a session
The Government of Serbia recently introduced a temporary state of affairs in the Municipality of Preševo and appointed a Provisional Authority because the local government has not had a majority since July last year and no session of the Municipal Assembly was held for nine months, said the President of the Provisional Authority Ragmi Mustafa.
The President of the Provisional Authority is from the Democratic Party of Albanians, the opposite camp to his namesake, Ragmi Mustafa, from the Party for Democratic Action.
According to him, early elections in Preševo could have been held on December 17 and there was a legal basis for it, but for some reason the Government of Serbia did not want to introduce a temporary state of affairs and appoint a Provisional Authority earlier.
Apart from Ragmi Mustafa, the Provisional Body includes Tefik Bajrami from the same party, the president of the Movement for Reforms Sami Salihu, Škembim Velija from the Party for Democratic Action and Branko Trajković from the SNS. Local elections in Presevo will be held on June 2, as well as throughout Serbia.
