Albania will hold parliamentary elections on June 23, 2013 in a process that marks the seventh consecutive general parliamentary elections since the fall of the communist regime in 1992. To provide background information to an international audience, the Tirana Centre for Journalistic Excellence has published an executive briefing available in full at TCJE.org. Tirana Times, a TCJE partner, is publishing part of the publication here. TCJE is a nongovernmental and nonprofit organization that aims to improve the quality of journalism in Albania by providing and commissioning professional and independent media coverage that is free of political and commercial pressures often faced by Albanian media.
Albania’s history of operating under a multiparty political system is poor. The first experiment in democracy, back in the 192os and 1930s, was short lived. It ended tragically with the establishment of the communist regime after World War II. In December 1945, the communist regime organized the first parliamentary elections after coming to power. They were the first and last nominally pluralistic elections held by the communists. Immediately after the elections the communist regime launched a campaign of terror against the liberal opposition that had begun to emerge. A number of opposition candidates who ran in the 1945 election were arrested and severely persecuted. After that, the parliamentary elections in Albania were simply a charade. While elections took place every four years, voters had no alternatives from which to choose. They were rubber-stamp elections for a rubber-stamp parliament, since the creation of political parties or organizations other than the Communist Party (later renamed the Labour Party) was banned by the constitution. As such the elections were won by Democratic Front candidates, an organization set up by the Communist Party, and they were won with results that consistently went to up to 99.99 percent. Turnout was also 99.99 percent, if not 100 percent. Non-participation in elections was considered treason to the Communist Party and the country and it came with harsh penalties such as imprisonment, political internment and loss of right to vote in the future.
With this dark legacy of rubber-stamp polls, Albania held its first pluralistic elections on March 31, 1991, after nearly a half century of communist dictatorship. For the first time, there was a true opposition party in the race. The Democratic Party had been founded in December 1990, after a pro-democracy movement led by students at the University of Tirana. That first electoral process was conducted in an atmosphere of chaos, intimidation and violence. The opposition won a clear victory in the big cities, however, failed to win the election in the rest of the country. The case of the 1991 election was, among other things, an example of the opposition (the Democratic Party at that time) not competing with just the party in power נthe Communists of the Labour Party נbut with the entire state apparatus with its bureaucracy, resources נhuman and material נincluding instruments and institutions of violence and terror, such as the secret police, which were still very much feared at the time.
The use of all the state’s power in the 1991 elections, including instruments of violence as well as propaganda (primarily through the public information institutions like the Albanian Radio Television stations) continued what had been common practice during the fake election processes held under the communist regime. But unlike previous elections, in the first multiparty elections of March 31, 1991, the state and its institutions were used against a real political opposition. Unfortunately, such practice of using state resources against the opposition continued to be present in all future democratic elections. The circumstances and dynamics were different, but the practice of using the state’s power and resources to favor of the ruling party has been a continuous feature in all Albanian elections.
On March 22, 1992, parliamentary elections were organized by a caretaker government, following the resignation of the last communist-led government in May 1991. The polls brought to power the non-communist opposition, represented by the Democratic Party1. These 1992 parliamentary elections entered into Albania’s post-communist history as one of the few processes where the losing side did not contest the results. However, it is difficult for these elections to be seen as normal and a pure case of an uncontested process, because these elections did not simply mark a change in government, they marked a change in regime, one that had completely lost its legitimacy.
On 26 May 1996, Albania held the next parliamentary elections. The race marked the first confrontation between the ruling Democratic Party and the opposition Socialist Party, a rebranded and reformed Labour Party. In many respects, these elections were seen as a real test of the ability of Albania’s fragile democracy to function. The process was a failure. The Socialist Party and its smaller allies abandoned the election, saying the process had been rigged. What could have been a normal victory for the Democratic Party became a charade after government candidates “won” almost all constituencies. The Socialist opposition disowned the results of these elections and boycotted parliament and other institutions. Within a few months, the country was engulfed by anarchy, following the collapse of pyramid schemes that accompanied the failure of the electoral process. These Ponzi investment schemes took away the savings of most of the country’s citizens, leading to riots and rebellion. The 1997 crisis, the worst in the modern history of Albania, led to the entire collapse of the state. It crisis was not just associated with the failure of pyramid schemes, it also had roots in the failure of the political elite to organize proper parliamentary elections.
Slightly more than a year after the political elections of 1996, the country went into early elections, which were held during a grave period for Albania, and with the presence of a multinational military force, which was called in to maintain law and order.
The elections of June 29, 1997, held under a climate of tension in which there was lack of state control over large parts of the territory, lack of security, and an inability of candidates to go to almost half of Albania depending on the party they represented. As such, more than an election, the polls were an institutional effort to find a solution for the crisis in Albania. The elections were won by the Socialist Party and its allies. For a time, President Sali Berisha’s Democratic Party, in opposition, did not recognize the electoral process as free and fair. Just as the Socialists had boycotted parliament after the elections of 1996, the Democrats boycotted parliament after the 1997 polls.
By this time, a dominant feature of post-communist Albania had appeared: a trend in which the election results are contested by the losers who then boycott institutions, creating a crisis that demands the involvement of the international community.4 In the future, even if any progress were made, it would not solve the essence of the problem in Albanian democracy: the intention to distort the outcome of the elections and lack of commitment to organize a legitimate electoral process, based on the laws and procedures.
The next parliamentary elections were held on June 24, 2001, and were a key second test after the failure of 1996. Elections were held in a political atmosphere dominated by conflict. A government attempt to manipulate the results in favor of its candidates, using a legal vacuum that allowed candidates to be both party representatives and independents failed after an intervention by the OSCE-ODIHR . However, the government was able to change the results in a more sophisticated way, which stood in a legally grey area. The voting process was delayed in one hundred constituencies and in a single area, the ruling Socialist Party instructed its members and supporters to vote for the allied parties, using the electoral system to produce more deputies for its coalition through strategic voting, that distorts the true results of the elections. From that strategic voting, ten MPs were awarded to parties allied to the Socialist-led government. The Socialist Party managed to secure through such distorting efforts three fifths of seats in parliament, which enabled it to have the majority required to have the ability to elect the next president and all heads of independent institutions.
The Democratic Party of former President Sali Berisha, in opposition, rejected the Socialists’ victory, which it saw as fabricated, and under international pressure, the Socialists were forced not to use the power of three-fifths they had in parliament. In 2002, the country’s new president was elected with the consent of the opposition, marking a rare example of consensus in Albanian politics.
The parliamentary elections of 2005 marked the first electoral process that enabled a normal transfer of power from the governing Socialist Party to the Democratic Party, which was able to return to power after eight years in opposition. There were again charges of rigging and violations of rules in the election process and procedures, but ultimately the election enabled the transfer of power from government to opposition. The Socialist Party, which had been in power for eight years, went into the elections divided. After internal clashes, a faction of the party led by former Prime Minister Ilir Meta (2001) split and created the Socialist Movement for Integration (SMI). This division affected the results of the parliamentary elections of 2005, along with other factors related to bad governance and loss of public trust in the Socialist-led government.
The impact such rift had on the Socialists’ loss remains unknown. Many other hypothetical question remain unanswered as to how parties would have behaved should the ultimate results not been in favour of the opposition. However, this argument is not simply a matter of curiosity. While the fact remains that the parliamentary elections of 2005 made it possible for the first transfer of power from government to opposition, nevertheless, it remains questionable whether Albania’s parties were moving towards political maturity, or whether the electoral process was moving toward a normalization that would separate it from a legacy of vote rigging, distrust and political conflict, which hurts the stability and security of the country every time an elections cycle is completed.
The 2009 parliamentary elections marked the return of the dominant characteristic of the post-communist Albania: the rejection of the results and boycott of institutions. The opposition Socialist Party accused the government controlled by the Democratic Party of rigging the elections and demanded the opening of the ballot boxes so a recount could take place. The Socialist opposition protest radicalized through consistent boycott of parliament and other institutions for a long time and then a number of Socialists, including MPs, went on hunger strike in front of the prime minister’s office. In April 2009, Albania had been a member of NATO for only four months, and its parliament was in shambles, boycotted by the parliamentary opposition. In addition to not recognizing the election results, the opposition had gone to the extreme of organizing a hunger strike to demand a recount. An angry Socialist opposition, continued its boycott of parliament for more than one year following the election. The election results did not actually give a governing majority to either of the two major parties. But the Democratic Party was able to create a governing majority coalition, by inviting the Socialist Movement for Integration into the government. SMI had competed in the 2009 elections as an opposition party and asked for the support of voters to remove the Democratic Party from power and send Prime Minister Sali Berisha to “political retirement”. But after the election, SMI votes were used to keep the Democrats and Berisha in power.
With such history of conflict, one needs to go back to the early days of post- communist Albanian democracy, to look for a better example. The local government elections of July 26, 1992 were the first administrative elections after the fall of the communist regime. Local and international observers enthusiastically claimed that the elections were organized in a generally democratic process. A number of problems were observed during the electoral campaign and polling day, but these were related to the lack of experience of organizing elections and the political culture of the society.5 Otherwise the process was fair and legal. The local administrative elections of 1992 to this day remain the only democratic process fully accepted by the parties in the race.6 For the former Communists of the Socialist Party it was probably too early to claim coming to power at the local level, when only three months earlier they had suffered a major loss in the parliamentary elections, which, as noted above, was a regime change and not just government change.
However, in local administrative elections, the precedent did not last, and just like the general elections, the same pattern was established: There are attempts to manipulate or influence the results and the loser does not accept the results. Twenty years after the first local elections took place in an environment close to political anarchy and instability, with the completion of local elections in Tirana, in 2011, the country has not moved forward. The Socialist Party accused the government of rigging the vote counting in Tirana. Socialist Party leader Edi Rama was competing for mayor, a post he had held for a decade. In the first count, Rama finished ahead, but with an extremely small margin נten votes. But the Central Election Commission decided to recount the votes and Democratic candidate Lulzim Basha was declared the winner instead.
Although new players have entered the political scene in Albania, the upcoming parliamentary elections of June 23, 2013 will primarily be a battle between the ruling Democratic Party and the opposition Socialist Party and collations which either party will lead. These two parties have dominated the political scene for the past 20 years in Albania, and despite attempts to create a third option, Albania has created a political system that is bipolar in nature, with the two parties taking turns at being in power. This two-party system is showing signs of cracking, however, as seen particularly during the recent parliamentary elections of 2009. Neither of the two major parties was able to secure enough of a majority on its own to form a government, 71 out of 140 members of parliament. The Democratic Party was only able to create a government by inviting SMI to join the government. Chances are that this bipolar two-party system could face further erosion in the next parliamentary elections, due to two new political parties: the Red and Black Alliance and the New Democratic Spirit.
From the ideological point of view, the Democrats and Socialists are actually very similar. These two major parties have almost the same general program, twenty years since their founding, but the dominance of these parties seems to be assisted by the nature of the electoral system, a regional proportional system that does not allow free competition of small political parties, especially for new parties, if they do not join coalitions with one of the two major parties.
For perhaps the first time in twenty years of transition, the two major parties are actually following their left or right labels. The Democratic Party insists that it will continue to apply a flat tax of 10 percent as an opportunity to increase investment and employment. Local and international experts believe that the flat tax of 10 percent is very attractive for foreign and local investment, for which there is a great need in Albania.
There is almost no difference in foreign policy and international relations in the programs of the two major parties. During the past eight years, when the government has been led by Sali Berisha’s Democratic Party, the country managed to join the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO). From 2011, Albanian citizens have had the opportunity to travel to much of the EU without first having to obtain a visa of the Schengen area countries. This is an excellent achievement that will help modernize Albanian society and improve the economy, trade flows and quality of life. The Albanian government under the leadership of the Democrats, applied for EU membership a few days before the parliamentary elections of June 29, 2009, but the European Commission has rejected granting candidate status three times, and thus Albania has failed to make a first step in the accession process. The center-right government of Sali Berisha accused the Socialist opposition that it has intentionally hampered the country’s progress toward EU integration. The governing Democrats support this charge with the boycott of institutions by the Socialists, starting with the long boycott of parliament, but particularly, more recently, with the refusal of the opposition to vote three reform-related laws, which require a qualified majority.
In Albania, there is no political party, organization or influential individual that challenges the country’s goal for membership in the European Union. Western observers say that Albania would already have the status of candidate country if the government and the opposition would agree to work together. More than the content of the laws, it seems that Brussels places importance in the spirit of consensus and compromise. The argument the Socialists offer that they won’t approve the three laws because other laws are not properly enforced is essentially wrong. At the same time, the Democrats’ equation that the three laws’ approval equals EU candidate status is also not true.
