Electoral College prolongs May 8 election process

TIRANA, June 14 – Albania’s top electoral court asked authorities to reconsider all contested votes or those cast in the wrong boxes in capital Tirana and add them in the final tally.
Before midnight on Monday, the Electoral College annulled the electoral authorities’ decision which declared conservative Democratic Party candidate Lulzim Basha as winner of the May 8 local polls in Tirana.
The opposition had appealed Basha’s victory in Tirana which resulted from the decision to include miscast ballots in the finally tally. Prior to this decision, Socialist Party leader Edi Rama had been considered the preliminary winner with a margin of 10 votes.
The re-tabulation process may take a while as all contested or miscast ballots in most polling stations will be reconsidered.
Yet this latest verdict was at first not clear as it did not identify which of the boxes would be reconsidered.
The Electoral College was asked to rule on two separate cases brought by the Socialist Party challenging the May 8 Tirana mayoral election. The first ruling, announced on Friday June 3, addressed whether the Central Election Commission (CEC) exceeded its authority in issuing rulings related to the Tirana race, and whether it was appropriate for the CEC to evaluate ballots that were inadvertently dropped into the wrong ballot boxes. The legality of the recount results was also contested. On all issues, the Electoral College ruled unanimously in favor of the CEC and against the Socialist challenge.
A second hearing was scheduled for Monday June 13, on a more narrow Socialist Party challenge of whether the ballots inserted into the wrong boxes, which the CEC ruled were valid, should in fact have been ruled as invalid and thus not counted in the final results.
The recount process may take long as all contested or miscast ballots in most of polling stations will be reconsidered.
Rama was not pleased with the verdict and called it “vague … turning back the process at the table of the electoral cannibalism where our victory was grabbed and a tally with more votes than voters was created.” He has pledged to continue the legal battle.
Eugen Wollfarth of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, considered the verdict “a fair and good news … a careful and equitable scrutiny of the votes cast to see what exactly the voters wanted to have on Election Day, which was the 8th of May.”
The Electoral College must issue its written opinion of the case within three business days.
Arben Ristani of the Central Election Commission said it could take about one week. He also said that the verdict showed their decision on the miscast ballots was a correct one.
The local elections in May were meant to help break Albania’s political deadlock and mark a new stride forward in the country’s progress toward European Union membership, but have in fact done quite the opposite.
Rama now wants to take the dispute over the mayoral vote to the Venice Commission, an international constitutional body established by the Council of Europe, for adjudication – a move that Berisha has rejected.
Albania’s backsliding over the past two years has caused serious concern for its NATO allies and the EU. Even if the Venice Commission were to decide on the election, there is little sign that the defeated party would be willing to accept its ruling.
Overall, the countrywide local polls were seen as a great success for the opposition, which made gains countrywide– including victory in several traditionally Democratic regions in the north.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and European Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele have noted concern about “the legal soundness of the decision of the CEC to count the so-called misplaced ballots.” However, they have also called for Albanian politicians to put aside party interests in seeking a resolution.
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Countryman has expressed Washington’s concerns about the legal basis for including misplaced ballots in the count, and also noted the possibility of a Venice Commission ruling, but added that it would be Tirana’s responsibility to decide on this course of action.
Albania has been gripped by a political crisis for almost two years with the opposition accusing the Democrats of corruption and rigging the national elections in 2009.