Gov’t wants to explore electronic voting

TIRANA, April 6 -In a country in which no vote has gone undisputed in recent years, Prime Minister Sali Berisha of the Democratic Party suggested this week that electronic voting could be a solution in Albania.
In theory a great idea, there there are doubts if the notion can be applied here due to the likely inability of people to use the technique, bad infrastructure and many other details.
Vote-counting has been a problem in Albania for some time and currenlty the opposition is harshly protesting against what it says was fraud conducted in during the vote count.
Berisha mentioned the idea after meeting with his Estonian counterpart Monday Andrus Ansip.
Estonia could be one of the countries using electronics in almost all activities, including elections.
But Estonia is a EU member country where vote has never been contested.
Upon supporting the idea of the electronic voting Berisha suggested that members of the central electoral commission could visit Estonia to get the expertise.
“We are ready that together with the opposition we define the best, most transparent procedures,” he said.
However, Albania might need to first solve the political fight stemming from what the opposition calls lack of transparency in the last elections, part of which also used electronic tools.
The Socialists are calling on supporters to join forces for a wide popular movement against the governing Democrats, accusing Berisha of vote fraud.
They plan to hold daily protests in different towns in the country, before a big protest in Tirana on April 30. They also said protests would continue after accusing the government for election fraud and also for bad management of the country’s economy.
The Socialists, who have 65 of 140 seats in parliament, returned to the legislature in late February after a six-month-long boycott which blocked the implementation of many much-needed reforms.
But they refuse to take part in the parliamentary activities as their demand for the vote recount has been rejected by the assembly, dominated by Berisha’s coalition.
EU officials have repeatedly warned Albania the political stalemate could slow down its ambitions to join the bloc.