Pristina: Kosovo’s leading Serbian party called for a boycott of Kosovo’s first census on Friday, hours after Pristina’s government carried out a controversial population count.
“The Serbian people will not participate in the upcoming fake census,” the head of Kosovo’s Serbs, Srpska Lista, said in a statement on social media.
The census takes into account declining birth rates, mass migration, and ethnic tensions in many Balkan countries to provide accurate population figures.
Kosovo officials have repeatedly delayed the previous figures.
The Statistical Office of Kosovo (ASK) conducted another census in 2011, which was boycotted by Serbia. This census puts the population of Kosovo at 1.8 million people.
AEC officials said this week that they expect the census to take place in six weeks and expect Kosovo Serbs to participate.
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The census comes amid strained relations between Pristina’s government and ethnic Kosovo Serbs after it banned the Serbian dinar currency earlier this year.
Disappointment has been brewing in Kosovo since the implementation of a new law banning the use of the dinar, making the euro the only legal currency.
