The international police commissioner in Kosovo, Kai Vittrup, and the head of a 120-strong monitoring team of the Council of Europe, Andrey Tehov, said on Thursday that all conditions had been met for holding the election on 23 October.
According to opinion surveys, the Democratic Alliance of Kosovo, led by President Ibrahim Rugova, will remain the strongest party in parliament. The Democratic Party of Kosovo, led by Hashim Thaqi, is likely to finish second.
It is quite certain that no party will win a majority of seats in the 120-seat parliament.
There are almost 1,412,000 eligible voters, of whom 1,304,000 live in Kosovo. They will elect 100 members of parliament while the remaining 20 seats will be allocated to minorities. Of those 20 seats, 10 will be held by Serb representatives and the other ten by non-Serb minorities.
About 108,000 eligible voters now reside in Serbia and Montenegro.
A total of 1,622 polling stations will be opened at 07.00 hrs Saturday in Kosovo and they will close at 20.00 hrs on the same day.
In Serbia there are 100 polling stations, and 15 stations will be set up in Montenegro.
Almost 12,000 international and local monitors will observe the course of the elections.
A spokesman for the OSCE mission in Kosovo, Sven Lindholm, said preliminary election results could be expected on Monday.
The NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) reported that 20,000 KFOR members would ensure a peaceful course of the elections.
A ban on electioneering goes into force at midnight on Thursday, and it will be in effect until 20.00 hrs Saturday.