With less than 3 weeks from the parliamentary elections of 25 April, 29 candidates for MP are being verified by the decriminalization unit at the General Prosecutor’s Office. According to A2, for 25 candidates the General Prosecutor’s Office has requested information from Interpol, since there are doubts that they may have committed potential criminal offenses outside Albania. It will depend on the information that the Office will receive, whether it will be needed to further verify and investigate the candidates or not. For the remaining 4 candidates, verifications are being carried just inside the country.
Considering that the time to do such verifications remains limited, the fear is that potential candidates with criminal past may be elected as MP, as it has been the case in the previous elections. The United States and the European Union have repeatedly asked the political forces in Albania to respect the decriminalization law, and ensure that candidate lists are comprised of people with integrity. The decriminalization law prohibits individuals that have been involved in one or more 80 different criminal offenses, to participate in elections as candidates for public office.
Last week the General Prosecutor’s Office officially requested from the U.S Embassy information on Tom Doshi, after the repeated calls from the U.S Ambassador Yuri Kim on the Albanian institutions to prevent Doshi’s running in the elections. “The Central Election Commission has a responsibility to review all records in order to ensure that the candidates are qualified and not involved in acts of corruption”, Ambassador Kim has stated on the matter. However, CEC has registered the list of Social Democratic Party of Albania for the next parliamentary elections, including the name of Tom Doshi that is part of the list.
