Ex-rebel set to win Kosovo vote

(CNN) -- The party of a former Kosovo Albanian guerrilla leader who has promised to make Kosovo independent from Serbia is heading for victory in the country's elections, according to unofficial results.

With nearly two-thirds of the votes counted, Hashim Thaci's Democratic Party is leading with 35 percent, according to results on the Web site of the pro-democracy group Democracy 2007, which is monitoring the election.

The rival Democratic League of Kosovo, the largest political party in the country, is in second place with 22 percent, the Web site reported.

The Democratic Party's share of the vote means it will most likely have to form a coalition government. Watch what the vote means for Kosovo »

Thaci, an ex-leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army who was accused of acts of terrorism and was forced into hiding by former Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic, said his first priority when he takes office will be to declare formal independence from Serbia, reports in the Serbian media said.

Ethnic-Albanians make up the majority of the population in Kosovo, which remains a province of Serbia.

There is small Serbian minority in the country, which has been under U.N. administration since 1999, when NATO ejected Serbian forces from the province.

The United Nations has given Albanians and Serbs until December 10 to reach a deal on the future running of the province.

"These elections are not about Kosovo's status. We will declare independence immediately after December 10," Thaci told a crowd of supporters in the Kosovan capital Pristina late Saturday, according to a report on the Web site of the Serbian television and radio network, B92.

Saturday's vote was blighted by record low turnout after Serbs, who want Kosovo to stay in Serbia, boycotted the poll.

According to election officials, only around 45 percent of the state's 1.5 million inhabitants voted -- the lowest turnout since 1999.

International election organizers blamed the low turnout in part on poor weather.

However, Sven Lindholm, a spokesman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the international mediation body, said preparation for Saturday's vote had been marred by a lack of cooperation from the Serbian authorities.

Lindholm said the Serbian government, which is still in charge of running schools in Serb-dominated areas of Kosovo, had refused to allow schools in those regions to be used as polling stations.

"We were forced to set up mobile units. It was an inconvenience but we got over it," Lindholm told CNN. E-mail to a friend

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