TIRANA, July 5 – Parliament convened Wednesday for a third round of voting to elect a new president, but again the session degenerated into bickering and name-calling.
The failure to agree on candidates could force the country to early elections, an alternative which is now considered a distinct possibility.
The opposing parties, the governing Democratic Party of Prime Minister Sali Berisha and main opposition Socialist party of the Tirana Mayor Edi Rama, did not reach a consensus and blamed each other for the failure of the election process.
“It’s better an honored end than a disgraced failure,” said Berisha urging the opposition to hold the vote in a sign of respect for the constitution.
Ben Blushi of the opposition Socialists blamed Berisha, personally, for the failure and said they were ready to continue talks, also urging the premier to meet their leader and decide on the new president.
The opposition then exerted considerable pressure on Berisha to meet with Rama.
On Thursday, the two main parties will continue talks.
Lawmakers have failed twice to elect a new president. Earlier in the week, Albania’s two main political parties submitted lists of potential presidential candidates, but immediately rejected the other side’s proposals.
If Parliament fails to vote on a candidate during the third round, the Constitution calls for dissolving the legislature and holding elections within 60 days, a very real outcome of the deadlock since rules also stipulate that the last two voting sessions be based on candidates introduced during earlier rounds.
President Alfred Moisiu’s term expires July 24.
The president is chosen by at least a three-fifths majority in parliament, or 84 of the legislature’s 140 seats. The Democrats have 80 seats, too few to overcome an opposition boycott.
The Socialists have threatened to boycott the presidential election unless they are allowed to present their own candidate. The party argues that when it was in government in 2002, it allowed the Democrats to present Moisiu as a consensus candidate, and has now demanded it be allowed to present its own choice for the post. However, talks between the two main parties have failed to produce any result.
It is not clear how the voting will proceed since a candidate needs to introduce a petition signed by 20 lawmakers, which has not yet been done.
The parliament seems to have reached a deadlock with no candidate presented for a vote.
