“The men in Kukes are hard workers [at making babies.]”
— Interior Minister Flamur Noka, explaining why Democratic stronghold gets a new MP seat.
TIRANA, Dec. 20 – Government proposals on the composition of the Central Election Commission and the geographical redistribution of seats in parliament has angered the opposition Socialists.
The opposition Socialists party of Edi Rama is committed to stop the Democratic Party-led government of Prime Minister Sali Berisha from taking a parliamentary seat off central Berat, a Socialist stronghold, and take it up to northeastern Kukes, a Democratic area. The fight is focused on the reason why the population in some four or five communes has increased so drastically as to get entitled to get a seat from Berat. Interior Minister Flamur Noka, who is also a member of parliament from the Kukes area, said the population increase is explained by higher birth rates.
“The men in Kukes are hard workers” when it comes to making babies, the minister said.
The Socialists have asked the creation of a parliamentary investigative group to check the reason for such a difference of the population rise in Kukes, a big distinction from the average one in the country.
That has left the CEC in linbo at a time when it has more to deal with the new ways of checking the ID cards in capital Tirana or the digital ballot counting in Fier, the two big changes to be applied for the upcoming polls.
The tone of the blame for the failure to get the EU’s candidate status has also fallen, but not forgotten. Both the main political groupings mention it any time they offer a statement.
The other smaller political parties are daily involved in their electoral campaign and trying to get as much attention as possible from the voters. They also intend to show to the two big political powers they cannot create the government alone, without their assistance and that means they need big posts, like those that the Socialist Movement for Integration has already with Berisha in the last three and a half years.
