Opposition in danger of losing coalition

TIRANA, Feb. 20 – Albanian opposition seemed to be on the brink of its division following complaints of the Socialist Movement for Integration that the main Socialist Party was making deals with the governing Democratic Party for the electoral reform.
A LSI politician, Dritan Prifti, threatened that if the Socialists had abandoned their alliance then they were ready to go to the next year’s general election on their own.
That is a real threat as due tot hat division between these two main parties of the opposition they lost in the 2005 polls.
It is not clear what they concretely meant with the deal between the Socialists and the Democrats but at this time the country is trying to hold an electoral reform, rushing to achieve results ahead of the NATO Bucharest summit in April where Tirana hopes to get the membership invitation.
Holding free and fair elections has been a continuous complaint and also a precondition from the international community for any integration effort the country makes for NATO and the European Union. A parliamentary committee has been created, though its mandate has been postponed three times without achieving anything. A delegation of the OSCE’s ODIHR office also visited Tirana earlier this week but that seemed not to have pleased the smaller parties. The electoral reform is discussing whether to change the electoral law completely, or just makes some amendments.