TIRANA TIMES
TIRANA, April 13 – The governing Democratic Party of Prime Minister Sali Berisha made its next political move Monday urging all other political parties represented in the parliament to start negotiations on the amendment of the electoral code based on the recommendations of the OSCE-ODIHR report following polls last year.
Parliament Speaker Jozefina Topalli made the suggestions at the meeting of the heads of the electoral groupings Monday finding strong resistance from the main opposition Socialist Party, which wants to first get “transparency of the June 28 elections” before passing on to any other steps.
The electoral code was amended only last year before the parliamentary elections in a rare move of cooperation between the two main political groupings.
That was strongly opposed by the smaller political parties seeing it as a move to sideline them. That seemed to be true as only a few smaller political groupings managed to be elected in the new parliament.
Meanwhile the opposition Socialists are insisting that without the transparency of the alleged manipulation of the general polls they would not get involved in any other cooperation or work of the parliament. The Socialists, who control 65 of parliament’s 140 seats, together with one ally, ended their boycott in February following strong pressure from the international community,
Now they have resumed protest all around the country trying top press the Democrats on a joint investigative parliamentary commission on the polls that would also recount a number of ballot boxes, something which Democrats say violates the Constitution.
