YUGOSLAVIA: VETERAN ETHNIC ALBANIAN LEADER IBRAHIM RUGOVA CLAIMS GENERAL ELECTION VICTORY

Record ID: 566207

  • Title: YUGOSLAVIA: VETERAN ETHNIC ALBANIAN LEADER IBRAHIM RUGOVA CLAIMS GENERAL ELECTION VICTORY
  • Date: 21st November 2001
  • Summary: (W4) PRISTINA, KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA (NOVEMBER 18, 2001) (REUTERS (A)) 1. SLV EXTERIOR PRESIDENT'S RESIDENCE; MV SECURITY (2 SHOTS) 0.10 2. MV NEWS CONFERENCE 0.16 3. (SOUNDBITE) (Albanian with English translation) DEMOCRATIC LEAGUE OF KOSOVO LEADER IBRAHIM RUGOVA SAYING: "Based on the input and based on the information provided by the LDK election headquarters, we can already say that LDK has won with approximately 70 percent." 0.54 4. SCU PHOTOGRAPHER 1.00 5. (SOUNDBITE) (Albanian with English translation) RUGOVA SAYING "I take this opportunity once again an early, as soon as possible, the call for the formal recognition of independence of Kosovo". 1.20 6. SCU NEWS CONFERENCE (3 SHOTS) 1.46 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 6th December 2001 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: PRISTINA, KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA
  • City:
  • Country: Yugoslavia
  • Reuters ID: LVA9Z9ZVGWB7LQH5KQOJ4DZSUV5Z
  • Story Text: Veteran ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova has said
    his party had won Kosovo's general election and called for the
    world to recognise the territory as an independent state
    immediately.

    Exit polls indicate that voters have chosen a moderate
    leader and rejected a party headed by a former rebel in
    Kosovo's first elections since NATO and the United Nations
    pushed out Serbian forces.

    Although official results have still to be issued,
    Rugova said on Sunday (November 18), it was already clear his
    Democratic League of Kosovo had won a mandate in Saturday's
    (November 17) elections for for the forthcoming three-year
    term of the legislature.

    "We take this opportunity once again to call for the
    formal recognition of the independence of Kosovo as soon as
    possible," Rugova told reporters at his home in the capital
    Pristina.

    Kosovo legally remains part of Serb-dominated Yugoslavia,
    but has been a de facto international protectorate since NATO
    bombing ended Serb oppression of its ethnic Albanian majority
    in June 1999.

    All the main ethnic Albanian parties back independence,
    but diplomats believe they will not push too hard for
    recognition now as the province is heavily dependent on the
    West, which wants Kosovo's final status left in limbo for the
    moment.

    Voters elected a 120-seat national assembly that in turn
    will choose a president and form a provincial administration.

    The administrators will govern alongside the U.N. officials
    and NATO-led peacekeepers, who drove Milosevic's forces out of
    Kosovo in 1999. Turnout was 65 percent for ethnic Albanians
    and 46 percent for Serbs living in Kosovo, said the
    Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE),
    which was monitoring the election.

    In Serbia and Montenegro, home to about 200,000 Kosovo
    Serbs who fled after the war, turnout was higher at 57
    percent, the OSCE said.


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