Tirana Times
TIRANA, August 10 – Prime Minister Sali Berisha has made it clear government will not accept constitutional changes on the President’s election. Speaking at a government meeting on Wednesday, Berisha said “the Constitution is not a party statute. You cannot demand a package of posts.”
His comments came after the opposition Socialist Party demanded new changes to the Constitution that would prevent the Democratic Party-led ruling coalition from electing the new President on its own next year under a simple majority of votes.
Constitutional changes made in 2008 allow the majority to elect the President with a simple majority of 71 votes on the third round of voting if efforts to choose the President with a qualified majority of 3/5 fail in the previous two rounds.
According to Berisha, “Albanians’ main concern is not if the President is elected under 3/6 or 7/8 of votes, but roads, visas and wages.”
Opposition leader Edi Rama has also admitted the constitutional changes about the President made in 2008 were hurried and wrong and announced to undertake a campaign for changes next September, when the new parliamentary session kicks off.
The 2008 amendments to the Constitution changed Albanian electoral system into a fully regional proportional representation system. The changes made in consensus by the ruling Democratic Party and the opposition Socialist Party were strongly opposed by small parties, whose parliamentary representation in the 2009 general elections shrank considerably.
President Bamir Topi, whose five-year mandate expires next year, is unlikely to get a second mandate as President after losing the government support.
A former deputy head of the ruling Democratic Party, President Topi has been attacked several times by his former party colleagues for not supporting their decisions and accused of being on the opposition’s side.
Differently from previous times, the election of President with 71 votes under the current Constitution poses no risk of facing early elections as happened earlier in case the parties failed to reach consensus on electing the President with the votes of at least 84 of the 140 MPs.
