TIRANA, March.29 – Albanian politics is involved in intensive discussions on the need for electoral reform with political and civil society representatives confirming the necessity to change the legal framework, the electoral system and introduce efficiency as well as integrity in the administration of elections. To address the specific emerging debate and the needs of the reform, the Albanian Institute for International Studies (AIIS) organized on March 29, a round table with politicians, civil society representatives and law experts. The discussion was joined by Ilir Meta, former prime minister and currently head of Socialist Movement for Integration (SMI), who has recently launched a clear platform for electoral reform, Ben Blushi the political secretary of the SP and Dashamir Shehi, head of National Movement for Development (NMD).
Opening the discussion, AIIS Chairman Albert Rakipi stressed that the timing of the debate could signal a turning point in Albanian politics. Explaining the lack of international participants in the table, he focused on the need of domestic actors to act in a coherent and independent way in order to demonstrate political maturity. The need for electoral reform is highlighted by the experience of the recent local government elections and the consensus for the necessity of a political roundtable to solve once and for all the elections issue. This would allow Albania to leave its long transition period behind and to proceed towards a consolidated democracy.
Need for a new electoral system
Meta said that the table was a positive sign for reform which needs the backing of the civil society as well as the general public opinion in order to succeed. “The existing system is definitely flawed,” according to the head of SMI, “because it has proven to promote an unrepresentative parliament. It undermines the legitimacy of politicians because it generates disappointment in the electorate. There is a need for a new system that should be as simple as possible.”
Meta has recently launched forward a program of four points in order to address the main changes that should be implemented for a real reform. On the behalf of the political force he leads, Meta proposes a purely proportional electoral system, increasing the parliamentary threshold to 4 percent in a 100 seats parliament and the solution of technical problems such as voting lists, ID cards etc.
Polls managment
SP secretary Blushi started by addressing the insufficient time available for this reform until the next elections, be they premature (around September of this year if a presidential crisis is left unresolved) or regular (in 2009). Blushi said that the system is not only a matter of political morality, as it is often depicted in the media but also of structural flaws that need to be addressed. He underlined that the proposed proportional system deprives the citizen of his right to vote for both the party and the individual. Blushi said that the system instead should focus on the elimination of the assumption that some political parties are stronger than others. According to Blushi, artificial corrections that allot extra seats to small parties do not help parliamentary legitimacy. Returning to the time problem he expressed the concern that the current administration has not included reform projects in the 2007 budget which should carry an estimated price of 7-10 million Euro. Blushi said that unless specific funds are allocated in the second half of 2007, problems related to the issue of ID cards, population census and address system overhaul will be unresolved. He called for a more autonomous stance on behalf of the government on this issue that should be resolved by domestic actors and not by depending on international guidance, alluding at OSCE, much criticized by the opposition forces especially in the last local elections.
Dashamir Shehi presented the reasons why the system needs to be changed. Fist he addressed the fact that there is a corporativist philosophy guiding the work of Parliament with existing establishments trying to protect their status quo no matter what changes are made. He said that there is nothing wrong with the system itself but the way and the extent to which it has been misused makes it now impossible to be corrected. Hence the need to start again with a completely new system, which according to Shehi makes constitutional changes imperative. Without the proper adjustments in the constitution Shehi said that the reform is unfeasible. With an ironic note, he said that the new proportional system will not affect the quality of competing individuals since the party leaders will still be the ones to select them. The new system also needs to reduce the high number of political parties which is rightly considered unnatural. Shehi also proposed a modern electronic vote counting mechanism, borrowing the idea from the US model, with allowance for manual recounting in case of contestations. The project is quite feasible given that its cost of the project would not surpass $ 2 million, Shehi explained.
A parliament’s Senate?!
One interesting contribution to the debate was made by Sabri Godo, former Republican Party leader and one of the most experienced politicians in Albania, who expressed an idea for the creation of a Senate with around 30 members. Godo said that the Senate would introduce a necessary stability and consistency in the system and balance the powers, limit the Parliament capacity to act in the interests of selected parties. Commenting on the proposed changes, Godo expressed his concern that the pure proportional scheme would radicalize the polarization of politics. Eliminating this problem would be dependent on an internal moral code of parties and internal party democracy.
Shehi and Godo shared the view that the regulation of the electoral process should be freed from the competencies of the Constitution, allowing thus for more flexibility in making the necessary changes.
After the specific proposals of the participants from the respective political parties, discussants mainly from the civil society launched proposals related to the needs to establish an agenda and a pressure group in order for the reform to be duly prioritized.
Wrapping up the debate, Albert Rakipi explained that the issue of the electoral reform is an important and complex one, which calls for a due follow-up. He outlined the AIIS intention to produce a policy paper with the positives and negatives of the present system and the electoral systems that are being proposed in order to make the choices available to the actors more clear and easier to follow.
