TIRANA, Oct. 1 – Albania’s main opposition Democratic Party has officially requested the establishment of a parliamentary commission to investigate alleged wrongdoings during the general elections held on Apr. 25.
DP has also filed similar requests for parliamentary inquires on two other hot button issues that it says have cost the public purse heavily: the construction of waste incinerators and the heavy penalty the state has to pay to an Italian businessman after shutting down his businesses.
In the first inquiry request, the DP lists a series of government actions that led to the ruling Socialist Party having an unfair advantage in the elections.
These included the pandemic-related closing of the borders, so that immigrants could not vote; providing deeds to coincide with elections to more than 10,000 illegally-built homes; premature distribution of state economic aid and increasing the welfare rolls right before the elections; the state’s hiring of 13,000 temporary contract workers during the electoral campaign, the increase of public administration salaries; investment in quick improvements to infrastructure right before and during the campaign; a five-fold increase in public tenders, procurements and concessions; the issuing of cash compensation for property expropriated by the communist state; as well as use of patronage workers, who misused personal data of 910,000 to help target voters on behalf of SP.
The Parliamentary Bureau has to review the requests by next week and submit it for voting in plenary session.
The Socialist Party of Prime Minister Edi Rama won 74 seats and a third term in office in the Apr. 25 elections. While the opposition Democratic Party won 59 seats. Two other smaller parties received a total of seven seats.
The SP denies any wrongdoing, saying Albanians granted it a third term thanks to its good governance and success in managing the twin crisis of the 2019 earthquake and the 2020 pandemic.
OSCE-ODIHR’s final elections report noted that “in the April 25 elections, voters had the opportunity to choose between candidates who could campaign freely and under a legal framework that respects fundamental freedoms.”
But the observers’ report also criticized the ruling Socialist Party for “gaining significant advantages from being in power, through control of the local administration and from the misuse of public administration resources.”
According to the international observers’ report, “allegations of vote-buying were ongoing during the campaign” and “widespread vote-buying practices continued to be a problem.”
The report notes that “the provision of incentives and alleged pressure on civil servants” and “the use of sensitive personal data, including the political preferences of voters” were of concern.
The other two DP inquiries relate to the construction of waste incinerators which the opposition says were not needed and too expensive, alleging corruption; and the government’s loss of an arbitration case against Francesco Becchetti, an Italian businessman and former anti-government TV station owner who has been granted 110 million euros of Albanian taxpayer money after the government shut down his businesses in Albania.
