PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Moderate Kosovo Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova claimed a historic general election victory Sunday and urged the world to recognize the territory as an independent state immediately.
Although preliminary results will not be released until Monday, Rugova said it was clear his Democratic League of Kosovo had won Saturday's vote, hailed by the West as the first ever democratic legislative election in the Yugoslav province.
Kosovo legally remains part of Serb-dominated Yugoslavia but has been a de facto international protectorate since June 1999, when NATO bombing ended oppression of its ethnic Albanian majority by the Serb nationalist regime of Slobodan Milosevic.
The reformist leadership in Belgrade which ousted Milosevic last year decided 12 days before the vote to encourage Kosovo Serbs -- who boycotted local polls last year -- to take part in the election but dismissed Rugova's call for independence.
Saturday's election chose members of a fledgling 120-seat legislative assembly, which will in turn select a Kosovo president and government to run many aspects of daily life while the territory stays under overall United Nations control.
Rugova's appeal will not be heeded by world powers, which want the people of Kosovo to make new self-rule institutions work before broaching the subject of the province's final status which still bitterly divides Albanians and Serbs.
But his comments underscored how big that division remains. Ethnic Albanians voted for parties which advocate independence while Serbs voted for a single coalition with the declared aim of reintegrating Kosovo into Serbia and Yugoslavia.
Western diplomats are banking on neither side taking actions to back up their words for now, as both are heavily dependent on Western political and economic aid.