The upcoming parliamentary elections mark a great opportunity to show Albanians won’t have to rely on international arbitration for successful elections
TIRANA TIMES EDITORIAL
The upcoming parliamentary elections are not a “test,” as the media and analysts often put it. They are an opportunity. They make it possible to depart from the negative practices of the past and create a new, healthier normal – one in which elections simply take place, are administered by a competent, apolitical administration and produce clear winners and losers, which accept each-other as such and then go on working together for a better country.
The reality is that a dominant feature of post-communist Albania is that the election results are contested by the losers who then boycott institutions, creating a crisis that demands the involvement of the international community. The problem is that Albanian political parties often see losing an elections as the end of the world – loosing power and its benefits – is often unfathomable in a yet to be consolidated democracy. This, then, leads to an intention to distort the outcome of the elections and lack of commitment to organize a legitimate electoral process, based on laws and procedures in the books.
Moreover, Albanians often see themselves as unable to get it right themselves, often relying on international partners to act as independent referees. Such an attitude is wrong, and it must end. The upcoming parliamentary elections mark a great opportunity to show Albanians won’t have to rely on international arbitration for successful elections.
The leadership of a large international contingent of international observers that just arrived in the country has already warned that Albanians are in charge of the elections and that internationals would only observe and note how the elections were held, not play arbiter in any potential disagreements over results and election administration.
Yet before the elections have even started, the political forces are already showing signs that they are not ready to depart from previous negative practices. They have yet to find a solution for the Central Elections Commission, where three out of seven seats remains empty due to a political deadlock. The opposition refuses to nominate three replacements, protesting the governing coalition’s decision to remove an opposition-nominated CEC member from office and replace him with the government’s own man. The opposition wants to reconstitute CEC, while the governing coalition says that won’t happen. What is worrisome is that the opposition appear in no hurry to act on a solution. And the government, now all powerful at CEC, doesn’t really seem worried either.
If Albania goes to the elections with this halved CEC, it delegitimizes the process, and it could be used by the losers to perpetuate the trend of not accepting results and boycotting institutions. It’s the type of election process Albania certainly does not need – again.
Prime Minister Sali Berisha of the Democratic Party and Socialist Party’s Edi Rama must end the political friction that is negatively affecting the work of the top official elections managing body or risk undermining the legitimacy of a process and live up to the country’s poor reputations with elections.
The two men don’t have a record of agreeing on anything, except when making changes to the constitution that most agree hurt Albania’s democracy to suit the two leaders’ political hunger for power. The nature of elections is that there are winners and there are losers. Because of a variety of reasons, these should be the last elections for either leader. And if there was ever a chance for one of them to exit politics gracefully, leaving behind a legacy of consensus, this one should be it.
