The elections were held in all of Kosovo's municipalities, and, for the first time, local mayors were directly elected.[3]
Joachim Rücker decided not to officially recognise the election results in mainly Serb-populated municipalities where Albanians were elected due to the Serb election boycott.[4]
Main contenders
Three Kosovo Serb lists registered for the election very early:[5]
In total, 50 lists participated the elections.[6] Many of the lists participating in the local elections were Serbian, as opposed to the parliamentary elections, where only eight Serbian lists participated.[7]
Alliances
The Democratic Party of Kosovo, which won the Assembly election, and the New Kosovo Alliance agreed in early December 2007, prior to the second round of the elections, to form coalitions at the local level wherever possible.[1]
Results
The results of the mayoral elections in the thirty municipalities were as follows:
Unrecognized results in predominantly Serb communities
The Serb community in northern Kosovo generally boycotted the 2007 local elections. Although elections were formally held and results certified for Leposavić, Zubin Potok, and Zvečan, the turnouts were extremely low, the outcomes were not recognized internationally or in the communities in question, and the winning candidates never took power. The Prishtina authorities ultimately chose to extend the mandates of the previously elected Serb mayors in these municipalities, a decision that the mayors in question dismissed as irrelevant.[21]
^"North Kosovo Serb mayors reject extension of mandate by government," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 7 July 2008 (Text of report by Kosovo-Albanian privately-owned newspaper Express, on 5 July).
