MITROVICA – Two years before the end of his second four-year term, Goran Rakić has resigned from the position of President of Serban List (SL), the leading party representing Serbs in Kosovo, which has close ties to the authorities in Belgrade. Instead of Rakić, the new president of SL is Zlatan Elek, the director of the Clinical Hospital Center in Kosovska Mitrovica.
None of the representatives of the Serbian List addressed the media. SL issued a statement later on Tuesday, in which it stated that the Serbian List will be the “backbone around which the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija will gather in the coming period and that all important political decisions will always be made in coordination with official Belgrade in the interest of the entire Serbs”.
The change of leadership comes a month after the attack in Banjska, for which the former Vice President of SL Milan Radoičić claimed responsibility. Several days after the attack, Radojičić resigned from this position, but the party has not yet publicly distanced itself from Radojičić, nor has it reacted after his resignation.
According to Radio Free Europe, it is quite certain that the Serbs in Kosovo will have another political party that will operate in the north and south of the Ibar River. This is the “Serbian People’s Movement” party, founded as an alternative to the Serbian List by Branimir Stojanović, an activist from south Kosovo, and Milija Biševac from the north part of Kosovo.
“We want to build a new political organization that will rationally and reasonably represent the interests of people from all Serbian communities”, said Stojanović for RFE.
Earlier, a political activist from Northern Mitrovica, Dejan Nedeljković, told RFE that he would establish a Civic Initiative if local elections were called in the municipalities in the north, with the participation of the Serbian List.
“That’s what the citizens are asking of us. After 10 years of opposition work, as much as we have been fighting against the Serbian List, people have only realized we were right after a decade”, he said.