Kosovo election campaign begins

Election campaigning has begun in Kosovo as the country prepares for its first general vote since unilaterally declaring independence from Serbia in February 2008. The poll is also the first that Kosovo has organised itself and without international involvement.

Reuters/Hazir Reka

The campaign will last just 10 days, as the 12 December snap elections are the result of political tensions between the country’s two main parties, the Democratic League of Kosovo and the Democratic Party of Kosovo.

In a televised address Tuesday night interim President Jakup Krasniqi called for a campaign free of intolerance as the ethnic-Albanian-majority nation prepares for its first major democratic test since independence.

Last month Serbia's government called on ethnic-Serbs in Kosovo to boycott elections, stating that the right conditions "had not been set to invite the Serb population to take part".

Kosovo has recently been under international pressure to begin European Union-led talks concerning unresolved issues resulting from independence.