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News: Report Links Top Kosovo Officials to Organ Harvesting December 17, 2010 - January 14, 2011 Issue No. 54 www.prishtinainsight.com Price € 1 ELECTION SPECIAL Prishtina BIRN’s Election Insight Experience: Vote Buying, Electoral Ski Guide Fraud and Intimidation 2010/11 > page 3 The snow is falling and the ELECTION SPECIAL resorts are preparing to Serbs Divided on open for another ski sea- Kosovo Election Day son. Prishtina Insight brings you the best the > page 3 Balkans has to offer to COMMUNITY FOCUS enjoy the white stuff. Justice in Kosovo See Page 7-10 December 2010 > page 12 Electoral Fraud Fears for One in OPINION Richard Holbrooke, Three Stations across Kosovo Balkan Peacemaker Prishtina Insight has learnt that results from one-in-three polling stations require further investigation for fraud, calling into the question results from the whole country elections had so far centred on the ferred candidates to already filled Ambassadors Shocked By By Lawrence Marzouk extraordinary high turnouts in ballots, distributing blank ballots, two municipalities, Skenderaj and the buying of votes from a café Voter Fraud Gllogovc, 94 and 86 per cent near a polling centre and ballot- he results from Kosovo’s par- Among the observers to have liamentary elections on respectively, both strongholds of box stuffing. discovered serious fraud on elec- TSunday have been cast into Prime Minister Hashim Thaci’s BIRN monitors in the village of tion day were the US, French and doubt after it emerged that serious Democratic Party of Kosovo, Llaushe, Skenderaj, recorded one Swiss ambassadors to Prishtina. discrepancies have been found in which has claimed victory. election official filling in the final at least a third of polling stations But fresh evidence from the voters’ lists, which records the US Ambassador Christopher across Kosovo. Counting and Results Centre, and number of people to have cast Dell said while the process went As Prishtina Insight went to the testimony of BIRN monitors their ballot, between 4pm and smoothly in other areas of the > page 13 press it emerged that the Election across the country, suggest the 7pm. country, fraud was all too obvious Complaints and Appeals Panel problem was much more wide- Another video from the same in the polling station in Skenderaj had ordered revotes in five munic- spread. polling station shows officials where he monitored the vote ipalities. A new election will be BIRN observers found irregu- changing already cast ballots dur- counting. held in two polling stations in larities or were intimidated in ing the count by ticking the names “My security detail overheard Malisheve, 11 in Gllogovc, five in municipalities including Lipjan, of the 'preferred candidates'. them [election officials] say, ‘Call Kosovo’s only English-language Decan, 30 in Skenderaj and one in Prizren and Mitrovica, as well as Kosovo's election law allows vot- KEK to turn off the lights,’” newspaper is available: Lipjan. Gllogovc and Skenderaj. ers to select a party as well as Ambassador Dell said. Allegations of massive fraud These incidents included offi- their five preferred candidates Delivered to during Kosovo’s parliamentary cials adding the name of pre- from the same party. continues page 2 Your Door New Details Emerge in Kosovo Kosovo Airfares Stay Sky High From Newsstands Organ Trafficking Case Despite Increased Competition across Kosovo The Medicus clinic, just outside of The growing number of airline opera- Sent To Prishtina, is linked in a Council of Europe tors serving Prishtina’s international air- Your Inbox report to allegations that elements of the port – recently renamed after Adem Kosovo Liberation Army traded the organs Jashari – has failed to lower, what passen- of prisoners during the 1999 conflict. gers believe to be, excessive airfares. From The council’s human rights rapporteur Airlines are calling on the government our partners Dick Marty reports that there is “credible, to lower airport taxes, which, according to news convergent indications” that... page 5 business them, would lead to a ... page 6 see page 14 for more info Y M is supported by: C K 2 December 17, 2010 - January 14, 2011 election special Editor’s Word Monitoring Mission Splits in Acrimony Two key members of the Democracy in Action team have left the network of civil soci- Nc ose Ec ety monitors amid criticism that it has kept quiet about fraud “stuffed”. It may, therefore, be described the civil society moni- was not done to the level that best to scrap this election entirely tor in his polling station as “very could protect the votes of people,” and start again. By Lawrence Marzouk lackadaisical”. INPO’s letter reads. OK, this will delay the By Petrit Collaku In a statement issued on “We could not process irregular- Prihstina-Belgrade talks and will Wednesday, KIPRED said the ities to the Election Complaints mean that important decisions coalition’s aim was to observe the and Appeals Panel due to late t is often joked to be the short- are put on hold for even longer, voting and counting process and forms of the observers.” est word in Albanian, but is but confidence in a legitimate, eading think-tank Kosovar it was not meant to serve political INPO called on the coalition to Ialso one of the most widely democratically elected govern- Institute for Policy interests. apologise to Kosovo’s people. used, “tut”, written as ”ncncnc” ment is surely more important. LResearch and Development, “KDI has failed to gather and Ismet Kryeziu, head of KDI and on instant messaging services, is Talk of legitimate governments KIPRED, and NGO Initiative for publish the data derived from the of the coalition, criticised his for- often accompanied by a shaking brings me to the second bomb- Progress, INPO, have quit the elections despite the great num- mer colleagues for their com- or tilting of the head. shellof the week: Dick Marty’s coalition of NGOs which ber of observers on the day,” ments. “Both KIPRED and INPO And after a truly extraordinary opus on organised crime in deployed almost 5,000 monitors KIPRED’s letter of resignation are trying to manipulate the week in Kosovo, for all the wrong Kosovo. on December 12. reads. wider public opinion with their reasons, I have heard and read it The problem with his detailed Both organisations said the The latter stated that KDI information,” Kryeziu said. on Facebook perhaps more than and fascinating report is that leading body of the coalition, monopolised the information and Democracy in Action was wide- ever. none of his very serious allega- Kosovo Democratic Institute, was late in reporting the numer- ly criticised for remaining silent The elections, as I wrote last tions are backed up verifiable KDI, failed to properly report ous irregularities and vote after publishing the preliminary week, were to be a test of the sources in the report itself. If his irregularities during the election manipulations. results on Monday morning and country’s infant institutions and suggestions are true, their place process and had not provided “With regret, we announce that for stopping their count at 51 per their ability to organise a nation- is in a court of law where evi- objective reporting. we could not do our job properly cent of the data. They have yet to wide, parliamentary poll in just 40 dence is presented and defendants The criticism comes as the US, as we did not have direct access to release further figures. days. have the right to argue their side. French and Swiss ambassadors to observers in the field,” KIPRED’s He said that his organisation The trip to the ballot box, per- The Drenica Group’s involve- Kosovo also slammed the organi- letter reads. “Information’s that had submitted complaints on haps more importantly, would ment in organised crime was also sation for failing to detect fraud we had from the call centre has Skenderaj and Gllogovc. also bring into focus the political documented in the 2005 German in Skenderaj, where all three men been sparse, generalised and rela- “You know that there was a class’ commitment to democracy. secret service report which is were monitoring the count. tivised.” short time to submit appeals,” he While the first test passed off available for all to read on They called on Democracy in INPO said that KDI had violat- added. relatively well, the evidence that Wikileaks. It names Thaci and co, Action to no longer deploy local ed the basic principles of the The coalition is preparing a six- has since emerged about mass as well as a string of opposition staff to hotspots. coalition. “We think that the main page report on its findings for fraud demonstrates that elements politicians, including Ramush US Ambassador Chris Dell job of observation and reporting January. of the ruling elite, if one can call Haradinaj, as major players in it that, particularly but not solely organised crime. the Democratic Party of Kosovo, But this was a leaked intelli- Electoral Fraud Fears Spread Across Kosovo PDK, believe the voice of the peo- gence document, not a published from page 1 dents of a municipality to work International Officials: ple is not worth listening to. report from a respected institu- as commissioners at polling sta- I almost crashed my car when I tion. Nothing came of that report, “The generator of the school tions to avoid a repeat. Fraud Must Be heard the turnout figures for and I expect nothing to come of came on and the lights were off “The results for the winning Investigated Skenderaj. The idea that 94 per Dick Marty’s report, apart from only on our floor.” party will, to a certain extent, cent of those eligible to vote did the blackening of Kosovo’s name.

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