Authorities extend hours of ID application

TIRANA, June 15 – The Interior Ministry on Monday extended the hours for accepting applications for the new identity cards by another three days, with time available to produce them for use at the June 28 parliamentary elections.
The deadline for Albanians to apply for new electronic ID cards expired on Monday. Under the country’s new election code adopted last December, only citizens holding a valid passport or electronic ID card will be allowed to cast their vote in the parliamentary elections on June 28th.
The interior ministry said in a statement that a total of 1,362,000 citizens have so far applied for the cards, with 1,253,000 having been produced, while 950,000 citizens had already received them.
Interior Minister Bujar Nishani said they had agreed with the producing company to extend the deadline for three more days in order to give more time to those people who have no passports.
That was immediately reflected at the application offices where long lines of people were seen.
The desperate attempt is being made in order to equip some 730,000 Albanians who have no passports with the new identity cards.
New IDs and the passports are the only documents voters may use to cast their ballot at the polls.
The minister also said the distribution would continue up to Election Day.
Any Albanian without a passport may continue to apply but those applications will not be able to receive IDs in time for the election.
Authorities claimed that normally some 1.4 million Albanians vote and that is the number of IDs they have already supplied. They say that many Albanians are abroad and they do not care to come home to vote.
The opposition refuted that by saying that the process will serve the governing Democrats, allowing them to manipulate the election, claiming that non-passport holder’s number nearly one million, or 200,000 more than what the ministry says.
They have made continuous appeals and have also sued the ministry for not holding a more open process.