Socialists appeal for international help

TIRANA, June 4 – On Saturday, Albania’s opposition Socialist party called for international assistance to help resolve the dispute over the mayoral race in Tirana.
Opposition leader Edi Rama has denounced the verdict of Albania’s top electoral court that upheld the victory of the governing party’s candidate, former interior minister Lulzim Basha as “absolutely unacceptable.”
Rama said “international expertise is the only possibility … not to further deepen the crisis,” and threatened to meet the decision with “unprecedented resistance.”
The opposition leader called on “international friends and partners of Albania to recognize that last night’s decision is the loudest warning of the crisis into which this country may slide. This decision is absolutely unacceptable to us and today we strongly underline the necessity of international expertise that can guarantee that the legal decision-making on the elections of May 8th complies with the standards of the democratic world of which Albania can never become a part of through elections stolen in daylight and then rubberstamped by judges that are completely subservient to those in power.”
“The international expertise offered by the friends and partners of our country is, under these circumstances, the only way of shedding light on a legal process that will, otherwise remain completely murky and can lead nowhere but towards a dramatic deepening of the crisis of elections, justice and of the economy in Albania,” he said.
The opposition had appealed the electoral authorities’ decision to include miscast ballots in the final tally, consequently giving Basha 81 votes more than Rama– who in the initial count had been ahead by 10 votes.