TIRANA, Sept. 26 – Albania’s three largest parties have dug into their position on electoral reform with views that will make consensus difficult, according to political analysts.
There have been calls for a roundtable to get the work started, but the head of the main opposition Democratic Party Parliamentary Group, Edmond Spaho, said this week it would be hard to have roundtable due to lack of trust among Democrats toward the ruling Socialist Party.
“The 18 May political agreement between [Prime Minister Edi] Rama and [Opposition Leader Lulzim] Basha was breached by the rigging of the June 25 elections,” Spaho said.
Rama called earlier this week for the Democratic Party to engage realistic talks on the electoral reform, with the aim of improving the electoral process.
Basha said real talks could happen only if Rama assumed responsibility over what Basha said was “the rigging of the June 25 elections.”
Basha added real electoral reform was the only way to prevent any potential distortion of citizens’ free will in future elections.
He said electoral reform must provide for electronic voting and ballot counting, as well as any other necessary steps to bring an end to the vote-buying phenomenon in the country.
Albania’s third largest party, the Socialist Movement for Integration has said reform is necessary and that the process cannot be duet between the Democrats and the Socialists. Both the large parties agree the SMI should be involved, by they see the two larger parties as the top partners in reform.
In addition, representatives of about 30 small political parties met last week to discuss a unified stance on the upcoming electoral reform, with the novelty being that the parties belong to all sides of the political spectrum.
