Opposition Socialists formalize their coalition

TIRANA, May 12 – Opposition Socialist Party was joined from three other leftist political parties to create the Union For Change coalition for the June 28 parliamentary elections.
The Socialists were joined by the Social Democrats, the Social Democracy and the G99 political groupings.
“We are here to bring the change. Old language can bring nothing, Our new union was born to welcome those who want Albania like Europe,” said Socialist Party leader and Tirana Mayor Edi Rama, who has said he will run for the premier’s post but not as a candidate for a lawmaker, thus keeping his post as the Tirana mayor.
There is also another coalition headed by Ilir Meta of the Socialist Movement for Integration with some other smaller political parties. The two groups, though belonging to the same political grouping, the leftist, have had disputes which did not let them join forces for the June polls.
In another case it was expected that the Socialist-led coalition would also be joined by the Human Rights Union Party of Vangjel Dule, the ethnic Greek minority political party.
But the minority party did not decide to join their ranks on Tuesday and very likely will not make a decision till the last moment of the political party registration.
Based on the last year’s constitutional amendments, Albania now votes with a regional proportional electoral system, which in a way obliges the small political groupings to join ranks with the bigger parties in order to get enough votes and to have any seat in the 140-seat parliament.