CoE discusses Albania’s election

TIRANA, Oct. 1 – The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe discussed Monday the June 23 parliament elections in Albania, considering them to have been “competitive, with active citizen participation throughout the campaign and genuine respect for fundamental freedoms.”
It noted, however, that the atmosphere of distrust between the two main political forces tainted the electoral environment and challenged the administration of the entire electoral process.
A team of the CoE monitored the elections in June.
The report also said that the implementation of the legal framework fell short in a number of respects, which affected public confidence in the electoral process. The electoral campaign saw parties engaging in a substantive political debate, but mutual accusations still represented too great a part of the message given to voters. It also denounced the violence, culminated with the killing of a party supporter, “which tarnished the start of the election day.”
The report noted a series of procedural irregularities on election day. It also said that the functioning of the election administration during the electoral process proved that party influence was extremely important on structures which should be institutionally independent.
It said that the CEC must be an impartial body. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe advised Albania to cooperate with the Venice Commission to improve the electoral legal framework. It also asked Albania to make a clear distinction, both in the electoral legislation and when implementing it, between the political parties’ activities and state institutions and to guarantee the impartial and neutral functioning of the election administration at all levels, by ensuring its genuine institutional independence.
Despite improvement, one other topic noted in the elections was the lack of respecting the law on the one-third participation of women in the lists.
The Central Electoral Commission, CEC, has fined Albania’s political parties a total of 22 million lek (Euro 155,000) for failing to respect gender quotas in the June 23 elections.
Political parties nominate a list for each region, matching the total numberof seats. Under the electoral code, 30 per cent of candidates in the top tier of these lists should be women.
Few parties respected this rule in the June 23 parliamentary elections and most female candidates were relegated to the bottom of the candidate lists.
There are19 women elected in the 140-seat parliament and the new Government has six women ministers.