Opposition complaint

TIRANA, June 29 – Opposition Socialist Party leader Edi Rama on Monday evening called on police to intervene in what he claimed was an effort by the Democrats to influence the vote-counting process.
“I am speaking about a plan for verbal aggression with the illegal presence of persons at the counting centers where the Socialist Party is ahead,” Rama told a news conference late Monday.
He accused Berisha-instigated persons of illegally entering the counting centers and threatening or exercising pressure on them.
Prime Minister Sali Berisha immediately came out at a news conference afterward rejecting Rama’s allegations as “absurdities.”
Berisha said those were the calmest and most normal elections ever held in post-communist Albania.
Berisha and Rama’s parties campaigned on similar platforms, pledging to fight poverty and take Albania closer to the European Union.
In its seventh parliamentary election since the fall of communism in 1990, Albania came under intense international pressure to make sure the vote was fair and free of the reports of fraud that have marred previous polls. Albania became a NATO member on April 1 and is seeking to join the 27-nation European Union.
Some 4,300 candidates representing 34 political parties were vying for the 140 seats in Parliament.