Any further delays in having seven working members for the Central Elections Commission will affect the legitimacy of the elections.
TIRANA TIMES EDITORIAL
Away from the media and public focus that accompanied the early days of the crisis at the the Central Elections Commission, the chief official institution tasked with organizing the next parliamentary elections remains incomplete. Three out seven seats – the ones of opposition nominees – remain empty.
Without these three members the CEC can still operate day-to-day but it clearly cannot certify the elections and its legitimacy in the eyes of the voters is marred.
To recap, the opposition’s nominees resigned in protest after parliament removed from CEC the nominee of the Socialist Movement for Integration after the former governing coalition party defected to the opposition. The move restored balance to four nominees of the ruling coalition and three to the opposition, though legally it was questionable, and the Democrats had to resort to a pretext of personal unsuitability to remove the SMI nominee.
The ruling Democratic Party has asked the opposition to make three nominations to fill the seats. However, the opposition says it won’t rejoin the CEC unless the body is reconstituted entirely, something the governing party says it won’t do.
As the two sides dig into their positions, the question remains what the opposition is looking to accomplish with the boycott, particularly since the experience has shown that the ruling Democrats led by Prime Minister Sali Berisha never give in through such situations.
In theory, the CEC should be an entirely apolitical institution where members manage the elections without political interference. In practice, members are highly political – on both sides. If the Socialists want to have the four existing members replaced with different apolitical people, they should come out and say so, and then nominate three truly apolitical candidates. However, legally speaking, such a move would also be questionable since the members have set mandates and can’t simply be replaced, which the Socialists point out themselves at the start of the crisis.
Alternatively, the Socialist leadership might be looking to delegitimize both the CEC and the government hoping any possible electoral loss of the opposition could be billed as mismanagement of the elections. If such a strategy exists, it is wrong and it sets a terrible start for the electoral process.
On the Democrats side, it is clear that to restore the balance seen in the spirit of the electoral code, they acted politically and under pretext to replace the CEC member. As such they should be more open to a compromise with the opposition.
But one must also remember that the actual counting of the votes is done at zonal election commissions, which should now be dominated by the left, since the coalition of the Socialists with the SMI took shape, so there is some balance already built into the system.
The key point is that something needs to be done to get CEC fully operational in a way that follows the letter and the spirit of Albania’s electoral laws.
Representatives of the international community have watched the situation with worry and just this week there were repeated calls for an appropriate solution. As we pointed out last week though, the very fact that the international community would have to get involved in the CEC issues shows that no progress on consensus has been achieved and that Albania is entering these elections in the same conflict clients of the past four years.
Albania’s politicians need to see beyond their immediate power struggles and take ownership of the issue – and do what’s best for the country.
Otherwise, as Albanian voters go to the polls, they have to really ask themselves whether their politicians sincerely want to take the country to the European family, or whether they are just looking for personal gain and fortune at any cost.
