About a month away from the parliamentary elections, the concern remains. Albania might just sing the old song of a controversial electoral process, not in line with international standards. Nothing particularly foretelling of a problematic or manipulated electoral process seems to have happened. Yet, there are a hundred and one reasons to have little hope that Albania will finally and successfully pass the test of free and fair elections.
The hundred and one reasons are first and foremost related to the culture of suspicion and distrust between political parties, especially from the opposition to the government. This culture of suspicion and distrust that has unfortunately, though understandably, settled in Albania is the first factor casting a doubt on the fulfillment of international election standards.
Second, the hundred and one reasons are related to the kind of political culture that refuses to accept defeat as part of the political game in a democratic system. Albania’s post-communist leaders have mostly accepted the free and fair nature of elections when they have won them.
These two factors feed the fundamental rationale of the hanging fear that, even though this country of the Balkans is a NATO member and has recently applied for EU candidate status, the upcoming elections will be problematic and their results will be accompanied by deep political disputes between government and opposition.
However, apart from the abovementioned factors that are still the essence of the political culture of Albanian leaders, there are other, concrete factors that sadly foretell a contested process. A few would suffice from the hundred and one reasons one can easily identify in Albania.
Above all, it has become progressively clearer that the distribution of identity cards to all those citizens that lack alternative valid means to vote is not even technically possible. Will there be potential voters deprived of the right to vote because they do not have in hand a passport or ID card? If so, how many?
Identity cards relate to other issues that may presently seem speculative, sourcing as they do from the culture of suspicion and distrust. More specifically, even though the identity cards are biometric, election commissions are not equipped with the necessary facilities to read and verify the ID cards’ data.
Furthermore, voters’ lists feature as potential voters at least a million Albanians that have emigrated. The last elections were clear about the implications of this, especially in rural areas where participation in elections reached 90 percent when it is known to all that half of the inhabitant no longer live in Albania. So, who voted in their name? And with what documents?
A free and fair process does not concern election day only, but the electoral campaign too, and it seems this one will make full and rich use of the state machinery, public resources, public administration included.
Albania’s case offers other ‘opportunities’ for the manipulation of an electoral process, through visible and invisible violence, through the use of state institutions and public administration, the police, the media and dedication of airtime, money all the way to family, nepotistic voting. The list would be more complete were we to consider the quality of infrastructure in Albania. Similar circumstances and technical reasons can be found in other similar countries – similar countries that unlike Albania, however, have long passed the test of power rotation through free and fair elections. If there is something unique about the case of Albania, that is the political will that has so often failed us in implementing the law and international election standards.
