TIRANA TIMES EDITORIAL
Traditionally, no one over loses elections in Albania. The mantra has been that the results are always stolen, rigged, manipulated or distorted. So when the landslide June 23 general election appeared to be the exception to the rule – the loser gracefully accepting defeat and the winner humbly accepting – there was reason to celebrate.
However, events and rhetoric in the last few days do no bode well for the election’s record for being as perfect as it gets in Albania.
Grace and humility are out – conflict and rhetoric are back in with some of the typical old wording and features making a come back.
It needs to stop.
The overall election results are out, and none of the disputes and recounts currently in discussion will change who will be in power and in opposition in September. Not even the disputes themselves are likely to change preliminary results by more than one seat.
Yet the politicians are back in the trenches, marring the elections with labels such “as crime andbought the elections,” as the outgoing prime minister and former head of the Democratic Party, Sali Berisha, did last week. Berisha’s remarks are hurtful to the country’s image and ultimately harm his own legacy as they mar his own otherwise commendable handling of the election loss. (He accepted responsibility and resigned from all posts in the party – something many Albanians believed he would never do after ruling the party with an iron fist for more than two decades.)
But the the Socialists representatives are not immune to extreme wording either. One legal representative called CEC members “crazy” and threatened them with criminal prosecution for making a ruling the Socialists did not like. Such threats are unbecoming.
But the CEC also needs to wrap up its work as soon as possible. An entire month has passed since the elections were held and they have still not issued an official result, which can then be taken to the judges of the Electoral College for a final decision.
These were not tight elections, demanding recount after recount, to make sure the electorate got the government it chose. There is a clear result, it should be drugs’ proceeds issued, and if there are further complaints they can be investigated afterward – but a result should be issued first.
Much of the fuss and the reason the two sides are fighting every decision of the Central Election and Commission is to shift a single MP seat between Democratic Party-led coalition and the Socialist Party-led coalition, so the Socialists and allies either get or are denied 84 seats, the mark of three-fifths majority required for many important reforms. This is likely to prove irrelevant as every Albanian parliament has had shifting loyalties, which means MPs and parties switch sides all the time, depending on the interest of the moment. One seat is no guarantee of anything in Albanian politics.
At the end of the day, everyone in the process needs to be aware that the election process, and as a result its evaluation, is not over. The general election was closely monitored by the European Union, which has previously rejected Albania’s membership applications and warned that the polls would be “a crucial test” for its further progress toward integration in the 28-member bloc. So far the elections have been perfect and a huge leap forward for Albania. So why ruin them now?
