TIRANA TIMES
TIRANA, Dec. 20 – Governing Democratic Party of Prime Minister Sali Berisha has not agreed to start the investigation of the last year’s parliamentary elections as the opposition Socialist Party of Tirana Mayor Edi Rama requested.
First the Democratic lawmakers at the commission’s meeting and then Berisha himself said openly they could start an investigation of the elections as the opposition Socialists had only based their request on suppositions and not facts of alleged manipulation as they had said.
The Socialists complain that the vote count was manipulated in many areas. They first asked for a partial recount. Later they withdrew from that request and had recently asked a parliamentary investigation of the electoral documentation.
The opposition started with the boycott of the new parliament last year, to follow with street protests. After urged from the Council of Europe to take their seats. After a start of negotiations on a joint parliamentary commission to probe the allegations they failed on its organization and object. That meant resuming street protests and going up to a hunger strike. That was ended only after the intervention of the European Parliament and EU office.
Nothing achieved again and the Socialists stuck to a boycott of the voting process in the parliament. They had agreed to create a parliamentary commission. The Socialists sent a request a couple of weeks ago and got the negative answer Monday.
That means no way out to the deadlock that is affecting the country’s integration efforts into the European Union, which Albania has formally asked to consider its request of candidate status.
In November Tirana got a negative answer that was reinforced in the last days after Brussels decided to give the candidate status to Montenegro but not Albania.
Pierre Mirel, one of the EP top officials who has mediated in Albania’s crisis, urged the country’s politicians to find harmony with the new year. Mirel said that 2011 will be a decisive year and said that Brussels would closely monitor developments in the country. Meanwhile the country’s politicians started to exchange accusations against each other, both blaming each other on the failure of the solution.
Albanians will again listen to the daily tit-for-tat exchange of accusations and abuse of each other.
Next year in May the country is to hold the local authorities polls. The opposition has reputedly said there will be no elections without the transparency of the previous ones. It has not said it will boycott them.
The opposition has resumed street protests in many cities around the country always blaming the government for bad governance and abuse of the public funds.
The government, on its side, says that the opposition boycott is hampering the country’s progress into the EU. It only boasts of its successes and of the visa liberalization that started last week.
