Second round of parliamentary voting held in Albania areas

TIRANA, May 8 – Thousands of Albanians took part Sunday in local polls held in 20 communes and town halls around the country, in a second round of voting following the February 18 elections. The main attention was paid to a district in the capital Tirana in a contest between Mira Veizi of the opposition Socialists and Gerti Bogdani of the Democratic Party, who also serves as the party’s spokesman. Another district of interest was northern Bushat, where the Socialists and the Christian Democratic candidates boycotted the vote and Zef Nika, an independent candidate, ran alone. Early results showed that Nika won the post while the two candidates in Tirana were still locked into a political fight after opposition members of the voting committee abandoned the process. In other areas, preliminary results showed the governing Democrats were receiving a majority of votes.
The May 6 round of voting received little attention from political circles as they would have little or no impact on the results of the February elections, in which the opposition won most of the main cities while Democrats won most of the countryside areas or communes.