TIRANA TIMES
TIRANA, July 13 – Albania’s two main parties said this week they would resume dialogue on solving the country’s long-standing political crisis. The center-right Democratic Party and the leftist opposition Socialist Party said they will sit down in a roundtable to talk on ways to give an end to the political stalemate they started since last year’s parliamentary elections.
Following the call of the European Parliament last week, Prime Minister Sali Berisha of the governing Democrats publicly invited the opposition Socialists of Tirana Mayor Edi Rama in renewed talks on a new dialogue to give an end to their disagreements on the elections.
Berisha also said that the Democrats had nominated their parliamentary group leader Astrit Patozi to head the negotiations
The next day the Socialists also nominated their parliamentary group leader Gramoz Ruci to initiate contacts with the Democrats
They were planned to meet Wednesday but no agenda of the talks was made known.
The country is engulfed from a political stalemate over the results of the elections, which Berisha’s party narrowly won securing or controlling together with allies 75 of parliament’s 140 seats. That has almost brought the country to a standstill as the parliament cannot pas the draft laws that require three-fifth or 84 votes without the opposition’s presence, which has declared it will not take part in any vote until September.
Berisha and Rama have so far failed to agree on the powers of a parliamentary commission set up to investigate alleged irregularities in the parliamentary ballot held on June 28, 2009.
While the Socialists seek a recount of the ballots, claiming that the government’s alleged fraud was to blame for their electoral loss, the majority insists that the opposition has exhausted all legal means for a recount to take place.
European deputies last week adopted a resolution on Albania urging Tirana politicians to end the political stalemate. Previous attempts from European Parliament members, the Council of Europe and Albanian President Bamir Topi to mediate the crisis have failed to bring Rama and Berisha to a compromise.
The new talks will focus on creating a new parliamentary commission.
Berisha said they were ready to give the leadership and most of the membership to the opposition.
But the opposition warned that the basis of all the talks is the checking of the votes.
They have insisted on a partial recount which governing Democrats say would be illegal.
So it will really be up to the two opponents to decide whether they will compromise or not.
It is obligatory they should find a way out and Europe has given them time until November, when Brussels is to produce the annual progress report on the country and also may give a response to Tirana’s request for the candidate status.
Until now Albanian politics has shown it is not capable of keeping itself under control and has always asked for international assistance to find way out of any crisis it has coped with.
But now the country, a NATO member since last year, should also show maturity of its democracy if it wants to be part of the European Union.
