Opposition To Launch Nationwide Protests

TIRANA, Dec 3 – Open the ballot boxes, or go away!
That is what the opposition Socialists are asking from Prime Minister Sali Berisha of the governing Democratic Party.
The Socialists had given a 10-day ultimatum to the Democrats to agree to their request on opening a considerable number of ballot boxes of the June 28 parliamentary elections which they lost.
They referred to the report of the international experts saying that counting was conducted badly or very badly in about one-third of the offices.
They had asked for the creation of an investigative parliamentary commission based on a new law.
The Socialists are boycotting the new parliament since it started sessions in September.
The Socialists and their ally won 66 out of the 140-seat parliament. Berisha’s Democrats and their allies 70 seats and four were won by the Socialist Movement fr Integration which has joined the governing coalition.
But such numbers give no free hand to the government to pass a considerable number of draft laws and reforms which ask for a three-fifth or 84 votes. They are all the necessary reforms required along the country’s integration process into the European Union.
Berisha and Democrats turned down such an ultimatum saying they did not fear them. Moreover Berisha and his associates are involved in a harsh campaign of calling names and derogatory words against the Socialist leader Edi Rama, also the Tirana mayor.
They blame him of corruption in his post and also of a bad behavior in his personal life. They link him to the former communist dictatorship and also to the current Mafia links.
Berisha and the Democrats say they agree to investigate the June 28 polls but that does not mean opening the ballot boxes. They say that would break the law, the constitution as it would violate the verdicts of the Electoral College in charge of such complaints.
The opposition, meanwhile says it will get involved in a series of democratic protests nationwide. It has started such a campaign Oct. 10 to culminate Nov. 20 when tens of thousands of opposition supporters took part at a rally and then continued to stay in great numbers for the next two days.
The opposition has also threatened of blocking the normal functioning of the local authorities in all the areas they are governing.
The Socialists are pressing hard the international community to keep track of what this government is doing not only in manipulating the elections but also in a series of other attempts violating the laws and in corruption.
Meanwhile the international community is saying a dialogue is needed to resolve such a political crisis and calling upon the opposition to hold the dialogue preferably at the parliament. In other words, they are telling the country’s politics they have to resolve their disagreements by themselves.
Albania is a NATO member country since April. It is also asking to get the EU candidate status. It is also expecting to get the visa-free regime likely in mid-2010.
All these ask for and need passing of a number of important reforms necessary to fulfill the EU’s required standards.
It has been usual for the post-communist tiny Balkan country to ask or be obliged to wait for the international interference to resolve its political crisis. Twelve years ago NATO also sent a contingent of some thousands of troops to restore order in the almost-anarchic country.
It is again such a situation, when Albania again needs an outside assistance to resolve its internal problems.
Albanians want a better life. They have always shown they do believe at certain moments (usually electoral campaigns) what they are promised of. They have shown they are democratic and take part in large numbers in voting. They have shown they understand what politics tells them about the goods and bads of different programmes.
But now they are listening to such derogatory words against each other and one may ask about the result coming out of them: So What?!…