Kosovo has just held an election, under the watchful eye of its international overlords, and the main winner is the prime minister of Serbia, Vojislav Kostunica. That was one of the oddest features of the ballot held on October 23rd in a province whose political future remains wide open, five years after NATO wrested the place from the Serbs. One of the few uncertainties about the result of the election was how many of the province's 200,000 Serb voters (of whom only half now live in Kosovo) would heed the advice of Mr Kostunica and boycott the poll. In fact, almost all did. In Belgrade, some young wags summed up Serb feelings by staging a parody of the vote. That was good news for Serb nationalists but it may spell trouble for the province, where tension is rising palpably ahead of the final-status talks which are supposed to be starting next summer.
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