Unofficial results show moderate party winning Kosovo municipal elections

by FISNIK ABRASHI
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia - Buoyed by unofficial results, moderate ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova yesterday claimed victory for his party in Kosovo's municipal elections and said his goal for the province remains independence from Yugoslavia.

Rugova's victory claim was based on figures compiled by independent monitoring groups and his own party, the Democratic League of Kosovo. Both showed his party winning the majority of votes in Saturday's elections - the first since NATO bombing forced former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic to pull out his troops in June 1999, leaving Kosovo to be run by the United Nations and NATO.

The Kosovo Action for Civic Initiative, an independent Kosovo elections monitoring group, said Rugova's Democratic League of Kosovo won a controlling majority in the province's major cities, including Pristina, the capital. Releasing its own preliminary results, Rugova's party said it had won about 68 percent of the vote in Pristina and more than 50 percent in other key cities.

Rugova's chief rival is Hashim Thaci, the former head of the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army, whose fight for the province's independence led to the Milosevic crackdown that precipitated NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. His party said it had not received any results. Ramush Haradinaj, head of the third major party running, said he would respect any official outcome.

Although Saturday's voting was for seats on town and city councils, the results are seen as a sign of how Rugova and Thaci compare in popularity and how well their parties would fare in any national elections. Full results are expected to be announced within eight to 12 days.