Following two months of political electoral squabbling, governing Democrats’ Lulzim Basha cleared the way to get Tirana city hall, without any more of opposition Socialist complaints in sight. But the opposition has turned down any idea of dialogue or joint work on reforms with the government which it accuses of manipulating the voting results on the table
Tirana Times
TIRANA, July 10 – Albania’s top electoral court turned down an opposition request for a rerun of a contentious vote that threw the country into a political crisis in May.
The decision last Friday means the governing party’s candidate LulzimBasha retains his victory in the race for Tirana mayor. Albania’s local election on May 8 led to a major crisis as the opposition and governing party candidates were separated by just a handful of votes.
Opposition supporters held rallies for days outside the electoral commission’s headquarters in May to protest a decision to amend the results by including ballots originally uncounted for having been cast into the wrong ballot boxes. The final result shows Basha winning with 93 more votes than opposition candidate Edi Rama.
Some hours after the decision of Electoral College Rama said that “although justice in Albania has died, the opposition will launch a large popular action, to retrieve the missing justice.”
He appealed to everyone, and the international community, saying that justice has capitulated and it is in the grip of the government. Rama accused the College for violations of the law.
Some international diplomats like the OSCE Ambassador in Albania, EugenWollfarth, asked the parties to respect this decision, saying that was a clarification step for the municipality of Tirana and that after this decision good management of the country is important.
But the European Union in Brussels said they had heard about the verdict but were still awaiting the lengthy explanation from the court.
There was no reaction from Washington yet.
Meanwhile Basha hailed his supporters and said that he would keep the promises he had made during the electoral campaign.
