Western leaders celebrating the Balkan Stability Pact's first birthday know that the peace and security it was supposed to bring to a troubled region face a stiff test in an autumn packed with elections.
Their hope is that in Kosovo all ethnic groups will take part in municipal elections which return moderate candidates, provoke no violence and serve as a shining example of the international community's achievements since it took over the running of Yugoslavia's predominantly Albanian province. In Yugoslavia they pray the Serbian opposition will unite, voters will throw off years of apathy, cram into polling stations, embrace Western values and democracy and sweep President Slobodan Milosevic from power in a vote free of fraud.
In Bosnia they would like pragmatists backing the Dayton peace accord to make dramatic gains, while in Albania they hope everyone accepts the results of a fair election campaign and in Macedonia the ruling multi-ethnic coalition triumphs. But the sober reality, in the view of regional specialists, diplomats and an analysis by the European Commission, is that the outlook is far less rosy. Several elections have the potential to trigger fresh violence in a region racked by a decade of conflict. They could also strengthen the hand of Milosevic, the West's bete noire in the Balkans, and others the West would rather see out of power.
There are some bright spots for the policy makers behind the pact launched by Western leaders at a giant summit in Sarajevo on July 30 last year with the aim of finally bringing lasting peace, stability and democracy to the Balkans. Opinion polls indicate the Democratic League of Kosovo party led by Ibrahim Rugova is on course to win municipal elections expected in October and billed by the West as the first free and fair vote in the province's history.
Although the territory's post-war political landscape is still in a state of flux, many international officials see the LDK as more moderate and closer to Western values than the parties which have emerged from the Kosovo Liberation Army. But if the LDK does well officials fear a backlash from former guerrillas who now wield power in many areas and will not give up easily the influence and wealth they have acquired.
"On a political quality level, you will have an improvement," predicted Dardan Gashi, a Pristina-based political analyst for the International Crisis Group think tank, which studies troublespots around the world. "But you will have a more serious problem in dealing with criminality and organised crime." The daily violent attacks on Serbs and other minority groups by members of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority also cast a shadow over the election. All but a few hundred of up to 100,000 remaining Serbs have refused to register to vote. To provide any sort of ethnic balance, Kosovo's United Nations governor Bernard Kouchner will have to appoint extra members to the municipal councils after the vote, making something of a mockery of a truly democratic election process.
"Given the extremely difficult circumstances, no one expects the elections to conform to Western European standards," acknowledges an internal analysis from the European Commission. "The ambition is rather to produce municipal leaders enjoying a certain democratic legitimacy," says the recently-produced study, obtained by Reuters in Brussels.
Analysts offer a fairly bleak outlook from a Western point of view for elections in Serbia. Opposition parties may perform creditably in some areas in municipal elections, holding on to cities they control already, but expect them to make significant gains in the vote for the federal parliament. Both polls are due by November. Having engineered a change in the constitution to weaken the role of Montenegro, Serbia's partner in the Yugoslav federation, and open the door to another eight years as head of state, Milosevic may call presidential elections at the same time.
Western officials expect Milosevic, indicted as a war criminal for his role in the Kosovo conflict, to stop at nothing to make sure he wins another term in office. "As he cannot hope to win free and fair elections, he will make sure they are neither," said Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy High Representative, earlier this month. The West's nightmare is that a Milosevic victory and his manipulation of other elections proves too much for Montenegro's pro-Western leadership under President Milo Djukanovic. The republic has so far not sought the outright independence which could spark another Balkan war. "You may get to the point where Milosevic makes it impossible for Djukanovic to stay in the Yugoslav federation," acknowledged one Balkans-based Western diplomat. Reuters
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