Election At Final Stage

TIRANA, June 10 – Throughout the day TV news always begins with the electoral campaign gripping Albania as tension has rocked the headquarters of the political parties gearing up for the parliamentary elections to be held on June 28. This will be a test for the Albanian authorities’ ability to organize transparent elections on the country’s way to the EU.
Four coalitions will stand in the elections that will be monitored by at least 2,500 local observers and more than 400 international ones.
Opinion polls conducted in March and April show that the two biggest parties – the governing Democratic Party and the opposition Socialist Party – are competing shoulder to shoulder for first place.
The international community, through the OSCE, urges political parties in Albania to boost mutual trust to enable free and fair elections later this month, in line with international standards.
What is interesting to note is the abundance of pledges made by all the political parties, especially the two big ones. The governing Democrats rely on their achievements of the last four years, pledging to take them further ahead while the opposition Socialists insist the Democrats have failed to comply with their main promise that brought them to power – the fight against corruption.
You may hear every day that Albania will have the newest road network in the area, that it will have non-stop water and power supply, that it will turn into a small regional superpower in energy, that it will have a better life, higher salaries, better health system and pensions, lower retirement age for the miners and a great, modernized educational system. The list continues with ever expanding pledges from all the parties. If one listens only to these promises, and does not turn their head and eyes to the Albanian reality, one could easily think this is a second Switzerland which should fear illegal immigration from African and Asian countries.
That’s not the reality. A main reason why any government should improve the life in this tiny Balkan country is not to let its “brains” from leaving the country. Most poor Albanians just dream of leaving their country for a better life somewhere abroad.
Politics has grabbed another aspect of that fantasy – pledging to make Albanians visa free next year, a pledge coming from both opposing sides. In reality, Europe is postponing the decision on that, though it has made it clear Albania does not currently fulfill the requirements.
In the end the country’s politicians would be better to leave aside the political pledges and to focus on one basic thing to accomplish – holding free and fair elections – something that has never been done in post-communist Albania.