Parliament approves new election law

TIRANA, Nov 19 – Albanian parliament approved a new election law, ignoring demands of a group of ten lawmakers on hunger strike.
The law passed by 112-1 votes late Tuesday, with the support of Albania’s two largest parties. The 10 deputies called off their hungers strike shortly before the vote. General elections are due next year.
Albania was invited to join NATO earlier this year and hopes the election reforms will signal a commitment to strengthen its democratic process _ a condition for further integration with the European Union.
But many Albanians are sensitive to voting changes after enduring decades of oppressive Communist rule.
Small parties say the reforms could exclude them from parliament, and attracted several thousand people to a protest outside parliament Tuesday in favor of the deputies on hunger strike.
They argue the new system will also make it harder to ensure a correct tally of the votes in a country where past elections have been fraught with organizational problems.
The protesters included supporters of the small Christian Democrat party that is in Prime Minister Sali Berisha’s governing conservative coalition.
Tuesday’s vote followed constitutional amendments passed in April, allowing for the voting rules to be changes.
The deputies began their hunger strike Nov. 10, and on Tuesday said they had at least been successful in raising public awareness in the problems the new voting regulations will have.
Albania’s two main parties _ governing Democratic party of Prime Minister Sali Berisha and main opposition Socialist Party of Tirana Mayor Edi Rama _ said the new code would ensure the holding of free and fair elections next year.
The European Union has made it clear to ex-communist Albania, which has yet to hold elections that meet international standards that next year’s vote must be above criticism if it wants to join the 27-member bloc.
“This code will be remembered not only because it will ensure free and fair elections, but as a great example of political cooperation,” said Ilir Rusmajli, a Democrat who was co-chairman of the commission that drafted the code.
“This code … can erase from memory the dark stories of vote trafficking that produced weak governments, which could be easily blackmailed,” Socialist deputy Fatmir Xhafaj said.
The code is based on the best European models _ Spanish one was very basic _ without foreign tutorship well ahead of the election, considered as the first time in post-communist Albania.
In a rare show of consensus in April, the two main parties agreed to change an electoral system tainted by allegations of fraud.
Trying to avoid manipulation of the vote a lawmaker said the video monitoring was intended in part to allay the fears of the minor parties, barred under a new election law from directly monitoring the vote count.
Albania hopes to cut down on notorious levels of vote-rigging in its elections by installing video cameras and monitors in polling stations, officials said.
Since the fall of communism in the early 1990s, the results of all elections in Albania have been contested.