Electoral reform fails

TIRANA, Nov. 15 – The parliamentary committee created to draft the amendments for electoral reform failed to achieve any results and was disbanded Wednesday, at the end of its extended mandate. This means, practically speaking, that President Alfred Moisiu has to set the election date now for sometime between Dec. 20 and Jan. 20. It will very likely be Jan. 14. It is expected, however, that the two main political parties, the governing Democratic and opposition Socialist, may present their package of draft needed. But that also means that there will be no constitutional amendment as expected because that requires 84 votes. The two feuding Albanian political parties reached a compromise in late August, over a dispute that threatened to delay municipal elections, that the vote would take place in the coming months. Opposition lawmakers had threatened to boycott the municipal elections and call for street protests unless the government agreed to make changes to the electoral system. Ben Blushi of the Socialists said that boycotting was not an option, asking that forthcoming elections should be “guaranteed, that are held at an appropriate date and that all the sides respect the rules of game.” Blushi also declined to get the payment for the committee he co-chaired, saying that it had reached no results at all and had practically not convened.
The parties had agreed that each would get to appoint a new member to the country’s central election committee, pushing the number of committee delegates from seven to nine. They would also extend the terms in office for elected local government officials from three years to four. Both measures would require constitutional amendments. These require at least 84 of 140, or three-fifths, of the lawmakers in Parliament to support a measure, the president to sign it into law, and a majority of voters to approve it in a referendum. The Democratic parliamentary group leader said that was very unlikely because that number of votes could not be reached after the failure of the committee. “Naturally we shall go to the polls. Parliament will do all the necessary amendments. But we cannot enter the process of constitutional amendments because that needs 84 votes,” Topi told reporters Wednesday They disagree on the date of the municipal vote, with the opposition Socialist Party saying it should not be held until the spring, as Albania’s bitterly cold winters could prevent people in rural areas from voting. The parties also agreed not to use a disputed voters list, which the government has resisted updating, in the local elections. Election monitors at last year’s parliamentary elections criticized the use of the list, which they said was used to manipulate election results in declaring the vote to have only partially complied with international standards. Opposition Socialists claim there have been efforts of manipulation from the government with the distribution of more than a million birth certificates this summer without the proper security elements. Democrats’ vice Interior Minister Ferdinand Pone only repeated that his institution had often asked the parliament to pass a law so that they would be free to compile the voters’ list.
Two new members will also be added to the National Council of Radio and Television to give more voice to the opposition, which had argued that the council was being used as a government tool.
The European Union has reminded Albania that holding free and fair elections is an important factor in its hope to eventually join the European Union. Its officials “underlined the importance of free and fair elections for Albania” and said the voting would be “closely monitored by the EU against the background of the country’s European integration perspectives,” in a statement. Albania signed a pact for closer ties with the E.U., known as the Stabilization and Association Agreement, in June, but no date has been set for Tirana to begin membership talks. All E.U. member countries must ratify the agreement before Albania can request to start entry negotiations.
The committee was set up on May 18 to draft electoral reform legislation, but was unable to make progress by the end of its mid-August mandate because of disagreements between Prime Minister Sali Berisha’s governing Democratic Party and the opposition Socialist Party. In late August, Democrats and the Socialists agreed to postpone its work until the end of October. They then postponed it again until Nov. 15, but to no avail.
Sabit Brokaj of the Socialist Movement for Integration said on Tuesday that the international community should intervene to unlock the electoral reform. Brokaj said they expected the OSCE/ODIHR to intervene, saying that “the Democrats’ strategic aim has been to go to the polls with the current electoral code.”