The Albanian Electoral Boycott
Serbia's tight embrace of Kosovo held hidden dangers for the Belgrade regime, however, since ethnic Albanians were also Serbian citizens with the right to vote. With an estimated 800,000 eligible voters, Kosovo might have played a key role in internal Serbian politics, perhaps even helping to defeat Milošević's Socialist Party. The Democratic League promoted a comprehensive electoral boycott, however, hoping to delegitimize Serbian rule, which it viewed as an illegal occupation. Even had the League been interested in cooperating with Serbia's anti-Milošević opposition, it would have been hard-pressed to find compatible allies, since many of Milošević's rivals were just as nationalist and suspicious of ethnic Albanians as the ruling Socialists. As prominent Kosovo politician Adem Demaçi noted in 1996, "We know that if Albanians entered the [Serbian] parliament, which would mean legalizing our occupation, we could jointly with the opposition bring down Milošević. But the irony is that what these small [Serbian] opposition parties offer to Albanians is still worse."[11] Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo were largely uninterested in working with either Serbian politicians or Serbian electoral processes.[12] Indeed, many believed that as long as Milošević remained in power, their chances of earning international support for their independence remained high.[13] The Democratic League's electoral boycott had far-reaching implications. Only 15.6 percent of voters in Kosovo's capital Priština participated in the 1993 national elections, compared to 61.3 percent for Serbia as a whole. But since most Priština voters were ethnic Serbs supporting Milošević's Socialists, the regime received a significant electoral assist from the ethnic Albanians' boycott. The Socialists gained twenty-one parliamentary seats from only 60,000 Priština votes, compared to sixteen seats from 255,071 votes in Belgrade, meaning that the boycott had effectively reduced the electoral price of a Socialist seat in Priština to 2,855 votes, compared to almost 16,000 in Belgrade.[14] With Milošević's party earning only 123 of 250 Serbian parliamentary seats, Kosovo's electoral windfall was an important part of the Socialist Party's victory.