Albanian lawmakers launch hunger strike

TIRANA, Nov 10 – Eleven lawmakers of Albanian smaller political parties on Monday started a hunger strike to protest against a new draft electoral code that, according to them, tries to drive them out of parliament.
Parliamentarians of the opposition Socialist Movement for Integration and the Socialist Party 91 were joined by the governing coalition member, Christian Democratic Party, at the parliament hall accusing the two leading political parties _ the governing Democratic Party of Prime Minister Sali Berisha and the main opposition Socialist Party of Tirana Mayor Edi Rama _ of monopolizing the administration of the electoral process by excluding their smaller allies from the electoral commissions.
“We are obliged to declare the hunger strike as the only democratic and civil way remained to us to stop the Berisha-Rama revanche and their anti-national, antidemocratic goal of destroying the future elections through frightening the Albanian voters and through a Stalinist counting of their votes,” Ilir Meta of the SMI read the statement at the parliament session.
Last April the two main political parties, which have the bulk of the 140-seat parliament, made constitutional amendments that scrapped a partial majority system in favor of proportional representation within each of Albania’s 12 administrative regions.
That move was fiercely opposed by small opposition parties arguing it aimed at driving them out of parliament.
Since then a parliamentary commission has been working on a new electoral code, which recently decided that smaller political parties would not have their representation at the voting commissions.
Holding free and fair elections has been an essential requirement for closer relations with international institutions. But polls have generally fallen short of international standards since communism ended in Albania in 1990.
The European Commission, in which the tiny Balkan country aims to become a member one day, said in its last report on Albania that holding free and fair general elections next year was fundamental for the country’s future hopes of integration.