Serbian candidate for MP in Kosovo: I lost my job after coming out against the Serbian List, my dismissal was for political reasons

Miloš Kovačević, 32, from the village of Bajë in the Municipality of Skenderaj, says he was dismissed from the provisional municipal authority, which operates within the Serbian system, solely for the fact that he was politically engaged against the Serbian List - the largest Serb party in Kosovo, which has the support of Belgrade.

He is a candidate for deputy in the Assembly of Kosovo from the Civic Initiative for People's Justice. The country's parliamentary elections will be held on February 9.

Speaking to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Kovacevic says that a member of the interim municipal authority in Skenderaj, Nebojsa Tomašević, told him on January 27 that he would “make sure that he no longer receives any salary from the Serbian budget, because he is a traitor.”

“I simply want to change something in my city, in my village. So that people live at least a little better ,” says Kovacevic, whose only income was a monthly allowance of 40,000 dinars, or 350 euros, from the temporary municipal authority of Skenderaj.

Since February 2023, Kovacevic has had a contract that was renewed every six months. But about a month before his contract expired on January 31, he says his employer deregistered him from the pension and health insurance system.

Kovacevic says that in this way he understood that Tomašević's "threats" had been realized.

"I don't see any other justifiable reason for my dismissal, other than political ," he tells Radio Free Europe.

Otherwise, the employment contract that Kovačević had with the interim municipal authority of Skenderaj states that “the employer reserves the right to unilaterally and without explanation terminate the contract if the employee does not perform the assigned duties.” Kovačević believes that this is also the reason why no one notified him of the termination of the contract.

To support his claims, Kovacevic gave Radio Free Europe access to his personal health insurance records, which show that his contract was terminated on January 31st and that his employer will no longer pay his contributions.

Also, the pension insurance records show that the employer deregistered him every six months and registered him one day later, in accordance with the extended contract. But after the deregistration on January 31, he was no longer registered. Nebojša Tomašević, whom Miloš Kovačević claims to have insulted and threatened, denies everything.

"Nobody told him anything. It's not true. You can't stop anyone from speaking. Everyone is free to say whatever they want," Tomašević told Radio Free Europe, adding that he doesn't know if Kovačević has been fired.

And the head of the interim municipal authority of Skenderaj, Vasilije Tomashević, says that Kovačević has not been dismissed, even though "not even his fellow citizens support him in what he does," alluding to his political activity in the Citizens' Initiative for People's Justice.

"The guy needs to get serious. I don't know what you're talking about, I'm not informed ," he tells Radio Free Europe.

Asked why he is deregistered from pension and health insurance, Tomašević says: "I don't know, I am not aware. The temporary authority is not working, it is closed."

“We don’t have an office here, everything has been moved to Raška [a city in Serbia] ,” he adds.

Over the past year, Kosovo authorities have closed dozens of institutions that operated in Kosovo within the Serbian system, including the provisional municipal authority of Skenderaj. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has said that no employee will be left without income from the Serbian budget, even though some of them will have nowhere to work.

Radio Free Europe asked the Office for Kosovo in the Serbian Government whether Kovačević had indeed been dismissed due to his political engagement against the Serbian List, but received no response.

The Serbian List is the only political option that enjoys Belgrade's support for participation in Kosovo's institutions, and its officials lead almost all institutions operating in the Serbian system.

The leader of the Serbian List, Zlatan Ellek, is the director of the Clinical Hospital Center in North Mitrovica, which operates within the Serbian system.

Kovacevic estimates that the Serbian List has done nothing for the villages inhabited by Serbs in the Municipality of Skenderaj - Bajë and Suhogërlë - where around 200 members of this community live.

He says he is not satisfied with her work, so he has once again engaged politically against the largest Serbian party in Kosovo. In the 2017 local elections, he was on the list of candidates for councilors in the Municipality of Skenderaj, on behalf of the Civic Initiative SDP - Oliver Ivanovic.

At that time, this political entity, on several occasions, announced that its candidates were under great pressure from the Serbian List, while the leader of this civic initiative, Oliver Ivanovic, was killed a few months after those elections.

Kovačević claims that Serbs in Kosovo, in most cases, fear for their existence and that this is one of the reasons why they do not speak publicly about, as he says, the pressures of the Serbian List.

In Kosovo, a large number of Serbs receive income from the Serbian budget, such as: salaries, pensions, social assistance, child benefits or other forms of financial compensation.

He says that he himself will have a hard time without the income he has had from the Serbian budget so far, but that this "will not distract him from his goals and plans to improve something."

"Nothing can break me," says Kovacevic.

After the 2021 parliamentary elections, Radio Free Europe reported that Bojan Marković from Ranilug lost his job because he refused the Serbian List's invitation to vote for Adrijana Hodžić, a Bosniak from Mitrovica.

At the time, it was said that Hodzic won the parliamentary mandate thanks to the votes of the Serb community, which was influenced by the Serbian List, with the aim of the latter bringing under control several other non-majority communities in Kosovo. The Kosovo constitution guarantees 10 of the 120 parliamentary seats to the Serb community and another 10 to other minority communities.

These parliamentary mandates are crucial for the adoption of important laws in the Assembly of Kosovo, which require the support of two-thirds of the votes of deputies from minority communities.

After the publication of Bojan Marković's confession, he attempted to change and deny his statements, which Radio Free Europe had recorded and published. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court of Kosovo annulled 4,205 votes that Hodžić's citizens' initiative received in the municipalities with a Serb majority at the time, and thus she lost her mandate as a member of the Kosovo Assembly.

Since its establishment in 2013, the Srpska Lista has received over 90 percent of the votes of members of the Serb community in all electoral processes in which it has participated. However, the EU Monitoring Mission in Kosovo found in its 2021 report that the Srpska Lista “has monopolized political life among Kosovo Serbs.” According to the report, cases of intimidation and pressure on voters by candidates and activists of this party have also been recorded.

In the parliamentary elections on February 9, in addition to the Serbian List, five other entities from the Serbian community will compete: the Serbian People's Movement, For Freedom, Justice and Survival, Serbian Democracy, the Party of Kosovo Serbs and the Civic Initiative for People's Justice. /REL