Albania’s democracy worsened in 2006, says Freedom House

TIRANA, June 15 – Freedom House, a non-profit, nonpartisan organization, issued its recent Nations in Transit report, covering issues for 2006.
Albania is richer, more democratic, and safer than ever before, said the report.
It is somewhat paradoxical that the country’s progress has been quite slow, and periods of democratization have sometimes been followed by painful reversals. The zero-sum nature of politics and the intense partisanship of the Albanian political scene have brought periods of deconsolidation, often following quickly on the heels of important achievements on the road to a consolidated democracy.
The report noted that Albania’s Euro-Atlantic integration efforts made headway in 2006. On June 12, the country signed the Stabilization and Association Agreement with the European Union (EU). Together with Croatia and Macedonia, Albania received an indication from the NATO summit in Riga, Latvia, that it will be invited to join NATO in 2008 if reforms continue.
However, these successes rested largely on the gains made as a result of the 2005 parliamentary elections. The coming to power of a new center-right majority that placed the fight against corruption and organized crime at the top of its agenda (and of chief concern among Albania’s Western partners) created a positive image and injected much needed vigor into the country’s reform agenda.
But a year and a half after the parliamentary elections, lack of progress on electoral reform has seriously jeopardized Albania’s ability to hold free and fair elections in 2007. Moreover, the strained relationship between the executive and a number of the country’s independent institutions has raised serious concerns about its ability to operate according to its constitutional framework, the report said.
In 2006, Albania’s democratization lost the momentum gained by the free parliamentary elections and peaceful rotation of power in 2005. The highly partisan atmosphere in the Parliament blocked electoral reform for the upcoming local elections, and public antagonism between the executive and several independent institutions and a tendency to amass power in the hands of the executive made national governance less effective and less democratic, the report warned.
The center-right administration carried out its fight against corruption and organized crime energetically, but without due regard for constitutional rights and freedoms. The political opposition demonstrated intransigence and did not provide a clear vision for governing properly. The rotation of power also brought about a cleansing of the civil service without due process, which undermined the efficiency of public administration.
Yet, paradoxically, 2006 demonstrated the remarkable strength of Albanian democracy. Overall, independent institutions did not close due to political pressure. Also, a number of legislative and political initiatives that ran counter to the spirit and letter of the law failed, showing that the parliamentary majority could not wield unlimited powers. Owing to efforts by the executive to bypass or control independent institutions, failed electoral reform, and a lack of clear commitment to protect citizens’ constitutional rights and freedoms, the national democratic governance rating worsens from 4.00 to 4.25.
Owing to the inability of political forces to agree on electoral reform, which has seriously jeopardized the country’s chances to hold free and fair elections within constitutional time limits, the rating for the electoral process worsened from 3.50 to 4.00.
Civil society activity declined somewhat, compared with the situation the previous year, when nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) mobilized to monitor the parliamentary elections. Nevertheless, civil society did lead several successful campaigns against proposed laws it deemed contrary to the spirit or letter of the Constitution, such as those regarding the state police, higher education, and others. Despite its structural weakness and oscillation, Albanian civil society has become a force to be reckoned with by any government. Owing to lack of improvement in local abilities to sustain civil sector activity, the rating for civil society remains unchanged at 3.00.
The lack of transparency in financial matters, audience/circulation, and ownership continues to characterize Albania’s oversaturated media market. Political pressure on media that do not tow the government line continued in 2006, although it was mostly of an indirect nature and the government was generally unable to gain the upper hand.
While libel and defamation have not yet been decriminalized, a draft law exists and there is an understanding in place that government officials will not sue journalists on such charges. Unilateral changes in the composition of the media regulatory bodies from a balanced political representation to civil society representation elected by the Parliament have opened the way to the election of pro-government representatives on these bodies. Although steps have been taken to make media more responsive to customer needs, political pressures and unclear ownership structures continued to characterize the media market in 2006. Thus the rating for independent media remains unchanged at 3.75.
Albania’s decentralization strategy continued to progress during 2006, albeit at a slower pace. Progress in the decentralization of water and sewage systems and in urban planning was very slow. Conflict between the central government and the municipality of the capital city, Tirana, showed how vulnerable local government is to the political agenda of the central government. The government still has some way to go to comply fully with the European Charter of Local Self-Government, which it has already signed.
Although Albania has progressed in the devolution of power to local government units, the difficult relationship between the central government and local structures controlled by the opposition has hampered local governance. Therefore the rating for local democratic governance remains at 2.75.
The country’s judicial system remains weak and corrupt. The right of full access by all citizens to the courts is not fully respected. A new draft Law on the Judiciary fails to deal with the system’s main weaknesses: poor education, problematic pretrial detention systems, erratic implementation of court decisions, and behavioral incentives for each actor in the judiciary that undermine the rights of the defendant. But the judicial system asserted its independence from political interference during the year, especially when the Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional a law that required judges in the High Council of Justice to give up their judgeships in order to eliminate conflicts of interest. Owing to the judiciary’s successful attempts to resist interference by the ruling majority, the rating for judicial framework and independence improves from 4.25 to 4.00.
Overall, important successes have been achieved with high-profile arrests of organized crime gang leaders, decreases in corruption in tax and customs services and, perhaps more important, a sense that the era of immunity and protection for corrupt officials is over.
Lastly. The report said the anticorruption struggle has suffered from excessive volunteerism at the expense of institutions and long-term strategies. Anticorruption reform has suffered from a dearth of legislative initiatives, relying instead on the considerable will of the prime minister to clean up governance. Although actual corruption levels remain very high, the decline in high-profile corruption cases among officials leads to an improvement in Albania’s corruption score from 5.25 to 5.00.