Early results from the weekend's general election showed that five years of UN rule had only deepened ethnic divisions as Kosovo's voters signalled their despair with the Balkan province's administrators.
Barely more than half of Kosovo's 1.4 million voters went to the ballot box. While the province's majority ethnic Albanians were struck by apathy, its 130,000-strong Serb minority was seized by anger and completely boycotted the poll.
Only a handful of Serbs voted, following calls from Vojislav Kostunica, the Serbian Prime Minister, and the Serbian Orthodox Church to stay away. Mr Kostunica described the election as a "failure".
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In one success however, the 20,000 Nato soldiers who maintain the peace in Kosovo were not called into action on election day, as the province remained calm.
Matt's Chat
A running theme in the Kerry/Edwards camp is turning over more and more power to the United Nations. The one succcess in Kosovo is that the UN didn't have to deploy troops to stop election-related violence...Feel free to compare and contrast with the elections in Afghanistan...
