The May 8 municipal electoral saga continues at the Electoral College, which is to decide Friday an opposition Socialists’ appeal for a re-run of the vote in capital Tirana due
to many irregularities for which they blame the governing Democrats.
Tirana Times
TIRANA, July 7 – The main opposition Socialist Party is set to achieve a re-rerun of the voting in capital Tirana, in which final results have taken two months to come out and still unclear when they will be.
The Socialists made an appeal at the Electoral College, the top electoral court in the country, asking to declare voting invalid in 284 ballot boxes, thus asking for a re-rerun.
Last month the Electoral College asked the Central Election Commission, the top managerial electoral institution, on rechecking all the boxes for miscast votes and invalid ones. Following that the CEC issued the final results giving governing Democratic party candidate Lulzim Basha 93 votes more than opposition leader Edi Rama running for the fourth term for the capital’s mayorship.
The CEC refused to hear the Socialist appeal last month saying that was out of time.
Before that the CEC had also issued a final tally giving Basha 81 votes more than Rama, who had claimed in the initial counting to have won with 10 votes more.
The saga continues. The Socialists sent a second appeal to the Electoral College last Saturday. But on Tuesday they withdrew one of them, fearing that the Democrats would ask to join the two appeals.
On Thursday the College continued to judge on the opposition appeal. It said the verdict would come out Friday morning.
If the court rules in favor of the opposition, the case returns to the CEC, whose decision could be challenged again in the Electoral College. If the appeal is rejected, then Basha will be officially declared the winner of the Tirana mayoral race.Or it has decide itself to repeat voting in Tirana.
Despite that, it is very likely that whatever verdict the College gives Thursday the opposition have another appeal under their sleeve and they seem set to continue all legal steps possible to achieve their victory.
Rama himself has made it clear that the opposition will continue the legal battle but he also warned the judges they should respect the laws, the Constitution and not fear pressure of the government.
The opposition has lost in two other appeals at the College and has directly accused the government and Prime Minister Sali Berisha of exerting pressure on the judges.
The Democrats, on their side, try to be calm and always refer to the respect of the College verdict.
The international factor seems more reluctant at the moment. They just repeat the call for dialogue and the respect of the laws, the College verdict.
It is clear that democracy in this tiny western Balkan country has some more steps to take before claiming to have reached the modernized western counterparts.
The country is at a deadlock, a standstill which is hampering its further progress ahead, especially in the integration process with the European Union.
Albania has to fulfill 12 recommendations from Brussels but it has hardly worked on that this year, filled with the political ever-squabbling.
Besides many reforms and laws need a three-fifth voting at the parliament, which cannot be achieved without the opposition votes. Moreover the opposition has boycotted the parliament since the May 8 local polls and unlikely to go there for the next days this month till it ends its session.
