TIRANA, March 14, 2023 – Albania’s main opposition Democratic Party risks being unable to officially register for the upcoming mayoral elections as a legal challenge between two factions for the official leadership of the party continues.
DP’s majority grouping, led by former Prime Minister Sali Berisha, says the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama is using the divisions inside the opposition and influence in the judiciary to try to harm DP’s chances in the upcoming elections.
The Berisha-led DP says its candidates will be running in the upcoming elections regardless of how the legal challenge on the registration goes. They had to run under a different coalition label in the previous byelections when faced with the same situation.
Election officials are sorting through competing legal claims, missing documents and approaching deadlines, meaning DP’s registration is in jeopardy.
The main issue is on how to interpret the latest court ruling on whether Albania’s largest opposition grouping can register candidates for the May 14 mayoral elections under the label of the main opposition Democratic Party.
The appeals court reversed a ruling from a lower court a year ago that recognized former Prime Minister Berisha and his supporters as the legally controlling faction of the party.
The grouping led by Enkelejd Alibeaj now technically could have the right to run candidates under the DP logo, reverting back to the situation of the byelections of March 6, 2022, when Berisha’s candidates had to run under the House of Freedom coalition registered by allies Freedom Party and Christian Democratic Party.
Byelection results showed the Berisha faction had a strong numeric advantage of the Alibeaj one, but running divided meant it also lost most races to the ruling Socialist Party candidates.
DP has seen years of internal turmoil following its previous leaderships’ decision to resign from parliament and boycott the last mayoral elections. It then lost the April 25, 2021 general elections for an unprecedented third time.
The ruling Socialist Party, in power for a decade, controls almost all of the country’s municipalities after the opposition boycott and after a vote that saw the lowest voter turnout in Albanian history, ranging from 8 to 20 percent. The SP says it intends to win all the major cities and more than 50 of the 61 municipalities again.
The upcoming elections are seen as a test for Albanian democracy as another strong Socialist win would confirm Albania’s status as a single-party state in all but name.
