Claims on pressure on OSCE/ODIHR mission

TIRANA, April 6 – The local media reported that a member of the OSCE/ODIHR mission for the May 8 elections in Albania had told Balkan Insight that two western ambassadors had advised the mission to improve the presentation of their report in order to safeguard the country’s stability.
“They don’t want us to write what we see,” said the official from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, ODIHR, while noting that the advice from the two ambassadors would not be followed.
The ODHIR election observation mission, launched on March 29, consists of 15 international experts based in Tirana and 24 long-term observers to be deployed throughout the country. Besides ODIHR has requested 400 short-term observers to monitor election day proceedings and the counting process.
The mission is headed by Jonathan Stonestreet, who has headed several election missions for ODIHR in recent years.
responding to such claims mission’s spokesman Giuseppe Milazzo denied those claims.
The May 8 elections are seen as a key test of Albania’s democratic credentials amidst a tense political situation in the last two years that culminated at the violent anti-government rally of Jan. 21 that left four protestors dead.
The ODIHR official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the diplomats in Tirana believed that the “ODIHR report for the June 2009 general elections had been too negative,” giving the Socialist opposition the right to contest the polls results.
The Socialists allege that Berisha stole the elections through voter fraud, while the ruling majority rejects the accusations as baseless and maintains that the polls were the best the country has ever held.