The international community shouts loud calling for calm after tree violent incidents raised alarm that the electoral campaign may heighten the adrenaline of the politically-affiliated people ahead of the May 8 local polls.
Tirana Times
TIRANA, April 6 – Head of Tirana’s Construction Inspectorate Ardit Kaja was shot and wounded at the Skanderbeg Square, close to the Interior Ministry. Days earlier another candidate for the governing Democrats was threatened with shots in the air, while another person was also injured due to the political contest.
These were the frightening incidents during the last days which raised the alarm among the population and also the international community in Albania.
“The parties should stick to the fair play and stick to the Electoral Code. And in the electoral campaign there is room for arguments and arguments only. The parties should bring out their arguments, and – especially – that means no space for violence,” OSCE Ambassador Eugen Wollfarth said Tuesday.
Albania’s President Bamir Topi also harshly criticized the political parties to get rid of their contesting wording at the electoral campaign and also not to make vain promises.
Albania is to hold the local elections in one month, May 8, which will be a real test of their political fight.
The recent incidents caused alarm among the common people.
Kaja was shot while in his car by two assailants on a motorbike shooting a pistol with a silencer.
Kaja himself and also opposition Socialist Party leader Edi Rama blamed the Socialist Movement for Integration party, or LSI, part of the governing coalition, and before their ally, over a conflict that Kaja had a day earlier over a number of party flags that were posted on Tirana’s streets. Kaja took them off and said that was not the way that the political parties should conduct the campaign, based on the laws.
“A public servant has been wounded who faced the violence of a political party that with money stolen from Albanians has polluted our city,” said Rama, referring to the flags incident as the motive for the crime.
The LSI responded in a statement expressing concern over the Kaja shooting, and calling on Rama, who is the current mayor of Tirana, to tone down his rhetoric.
“The LSI denounces this crime and calls on Albania’s law enforcement institutions to investigate it as soon as possible,” said LSI deputy head for Tirana, Blerina Kazaferi. “We call on the mayor to keep his cool and to wait for the investigation and not act as both a cop and a prosecutor.”
Kaja’s shooting was the latest of a string of incidents over the past week, which included at least one other shooting.
A candidate for the Christian Democratic League in the municipality of Balldren in northern Albania was shot and wounded on Saturday. Several other incidents, including the shooting of a Democratic Party candidate and an alleged exchange of fire between two candidates in the Dibra region, are said to have been motivated by political disputes and the election campaign, but no evidence has yet established a connection.
All these add much to the already tense political climate between Albania’s majority and opposition before the May 8 local elections.
The elections are seen as a key test of Albania’s democratic credentials following a violent anti-government rally on January 21 that left four protesters dead and has since been the source of a heated dispute between the opposition and the ruling party. Otherwise the political parties are holding an intensive electoral campaign all around the country.
But eyes of everybody have been focused in capital Tirana where opposition leader Edi Rama will be contested from the former Interior Minister Lulzim Basha.
The opposition continues to complain of the manipulation of the voters’ lists from the government, claiming that thousands of inexistent voters are added to the lists.
In the last local elections four years ago Rama won against the governing Democrats then-candidate with some 20,000 votes more and the recent plays of the voters’ list, if proved true, can really change the final votes’ verdict.
The tension between t6he two opposing political groupings are in an already poisoned political climate, which has been in a troubled state since the disputed June 2009 parliamentary elections.
The Socialists allege that Berisha stole the elections through voter fraud, while the ruling majority rejects the accusations as baseless and maintains that the polls were the best the country has ever held. They also accuse it as a corrupt cabinet.
The government and Prime Minister Sali Berisha deny that and respond in kind that the opposition leader, also Tirana mayor is a corrupt person.
President Bamir Topi called on the country’s political parties to behave in a civilized manner during the upcoming electoral campaign, which due to start on Friday.
“I want to appeal to everyone to begin the upcoming campaign in a civilized behavior, similar to the politics in the countries of the EU, which we aspire to join one day,” said Topi.
The OSCE also called on the political parties to recognise the results of the local elections as an important aspect of democracy. Head of the mission in Albania Eugen Wollfarth told an experts’ roundtable on Tuesday that the credibility of the process depends on the attitude of participants and mutual trust. All parties must trust the election lists, election commissions and the counting of the votes, Wollfarth said.
