Elections stuck in deadlock

Albania’s parliamentary elections, to be held at the end of June, have ended in a deadlock. The main opposition party, the Socialist Party, has accused the government of attempting to manipulate the upcoming elections by decelerating the process of citizens’ equipment with identity cards. According to the Electoral Code, citizens can only vote if they dispose of an identity card or a valid passport for travel abroad. According to the opposition there are at least 750 thousand voters whose obtainment of identity cards, and by way of consequence, their right to the ballot, is jeopardized. The opposition has demanded for a free of charge process of distributing identity cards, as opposed to the 1200 Lek per card required at the moment. In light of very low minimal wages and pensions, this fee can easily be a burden for considerable sectors of society, especially in those cases when more than one person in one household needs an identity card for June 28th. In response to the opposition’s demands, the government reduced the fee for the country’s poorest, a considerable number of Albanian voters. Nevertheless, the opposition insists that cards ought to be distributed free of charge. According to the opposition, the government is placing a tax on the vote, a tax that many, not only those on or below the poverty line but also students, the Roma community who heavily depends on social assistance and rural populations are not willing to pay.
As of last week, the opposition has begun to boycott parliament, expecting a government reaction. High opposition officials have presented government not only with a formal request to freely distribute identity cards but also with a plan of action that would enable the timely distribution of the cards for all citizens. Alongside the free of charge equipment with identity cards, the opposition essentially proposed the one-stop-shop scheme to operationalize the process. Prime Minister Berisha however, refuted the oppositions’ demands, including its action plan, relegating them to primitive, Bolshevik-style requests.
The socialist opposition declared that the government is jeopardizing the conduct of the upcoming parliamentary elections. The leader of the Socialist Party, Edi Rama warned that the opposition will be unwilling to join an electoral process that it considers chaotic and prone to manipulations. Opposition sources inform that ” the government is not only delaying the process of distribution of identity cards, but it is also leading a selective process, causing problems for opposition supporters”.
There is a history of political conflicts due to election in Albania and this is no novelty. The local elections two years ago ended up in a deadlock, resolved at the very last minute, due to the many conflicts and disagreements.
This time however, solutions over disagreements have a deadline and if the government and opposition do not reach an agreement soon, the elections will roll towards failure. A last minute agreement would be invaluable in light of the fact that there are now less than two months to provide at least half a million voters with identity cards. According to official sources, it has taken four months to equip half a million citizens. The opposition has gravely accused the government of intentionally holding back this process in order to lead to make the use of easily falsifiable birth certificates inevitable.
In this context, the technical claims of both parties may be groundless and questionable. The gravity of the matter however rests in the factual return of mutual distrust which can easily compromise the country’s EU integration ambitions and even its political stability. While the majority and the opposition are involved in a political conflict that threatens the electoral process, the Prime Minister will travel to Prague at the end of next week to file Albania’s application for EU candidate status.
Albania joined NATO at the beginning of this month and it hopes to obtain EU candidate status in the months to come. The upcoming parliamentary elections, seen as a major test for the functioning of the state and democracy, are at a deadlock.