Elections in a deadlock

TIRANA, July 2 – Four days after more than 1.54 million Albanians cast their vote to elect the country’s new lkeadership there is still no result who is the winner.
It took more than three days for the ballots to be counted electronically, a new more tiring and longer way but hopefully more transparent.
Still Albanians have understood only that Demcoratic party of Prime Minsiter Sali Berisha is ahead, but without enough seats to claim the creation of the government.
What they are listening to is not results from Central Election Commission but a ahrsh political verbal debate they had thought it was lost somewhere in the years before these elections.
No.
Delays in the vote count and stand-offs over breaches of procedure that kept stalling the final tally are expected to negatively influence the monitors’ report the EU will review before considering Albania’s application for candidate status. Feuding over breaches of procedure and nervous standoffs between vote counters and politicians, most of them broadcast live on television, have delayed the count and annoyed Albanians anxious for a final resolution.
The process of counting the last ballot boxes in some areas has moved slowly, blocked by disputes between both camps, which have traded accusations of cheating.
Albania’s governing Democrats and the opposition Socialists on Thursday engaged in an open political fight accusing each other of trying to manipulate results of the weekend parliamentary elections.
A day earlier Prime Minister Sali Berisha’s Democratic Party claimed they won the polls, opposed by the opposition Socialist Party of Edi Rama calling to wait for the final results
On Thursday Berisha took a step backward saying he would personally wait for the final results.
Unofficial calculations show the Democrats to have won 68 of Parliament’s 140 seats _ one short of the 71 they need to govern without forming a coalition, Socialists have 65, The smaller Socialist Alliance for Integration with four, Republican Party and Justice and Integration Party one each, according to by ECA-KRIIK, a group of non-governmental organizations conducting a parallel vote tabulation and funded by the United States Agency for International Development.
Berisha said he was open to other coalitions with the leftist parties but turned down the idea of a broader coalition government with the Socialists.
One lawmaker of the Socialist Movement Integration (SMI), which gained four seats, said he would give his vote to Berisha, not to Rama. SMI is politically inclined to work with the Socialists although they have no pre-election deal.
Under the regional proportional system, applied for the first time, all results must come in before the final result is calculated. The tight race was unprecedented for Albania and the next government is expected to be weak.
Both Berisha and Rama started a tit-for-tat verbal attack against each other using such words as ‘criminal,’ ‘shameful dirty act,’ ‘going out of one’s wits,’ ‘scandalous insult.’
Both were saying the same things but from different sides. Both appealing on their supporter to remain calm but adding they would defend their vote to the last …
Both accuse each other of blocking the counting process and violating the electoral standards.
Albanians still do not have the results and that might take it longer than planned.
CEC normally said it would want up to 48 hours to calculate the ballots and give final results. Very likely that will take longer.
Party militants almost clashed physically in two counting offices before agreeing to take the ballots boxes to the Central Election Commission to count.
Both leaders called on their supporters to refrain from any act of violence but also said they would defend their votes to the last minute.
“We shall fight with all the legal means so that the people’s verdict of June 28 is read for each ballot,“ said Rama, denying Berisha’s claims he would start protests.
Counting was completed all over the country but election authorities have yet to start calculations to allocate the parliament seats.
It was only Thrusday midday that the last contested ballot boxes went from Fier to the CEC. Now CEC has to count itself a number of ballot boxes coming from Shkodra and Lezha as well.
The final official results are expected by the end of the week.
Both main parties ran on a similar platform, pledging to lift Albania out of poverty and secure its EU accession.
The Balkan country was under intense international pressure to make sure the vote was fair and free of the reports of fraud that have marred the six previous polls since communism ended in 1990. Albania became a NATO member on April 1 and is seeking to join the 27-nation EU.
Election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said that while there were improvements and fewer irregularities, violations persisted.
Based on the partial count, the election commission said 49 percent of Albania’s 3.1 million registered voters, or 1.54 million people, had cast ballots on Sunday. That was about 150,000 more votes than in the 2005 elections.
What did these election show?
One could say that the new system failed to achieve what it aimed to. Probably a two-party system not dependent on the smaller political parties.
That is not a reality now because it is up to Ilir Meta of the Socialist Movement for Integration, Vangjel Dule of the minority party, Fatmir Mediu of the Republicans or Tahir Muhedini of the Cam community to decide.
True they are aligned to one of the wings, be that right or left. But experience in the last years has shown the pipng pong of the lawmakers when needed. Why not this time?
Elections also showed the two main parties have similar support and it is very hard to distinguish which may continue to govern. It will be imposible for any government created from berisha or Rmaa to pass many laws in a parliament where they are almost equal and the laws need three-fifth or 84 votes.