TIRANA, June 17 – Authorities have announced that they have launched criminal proceedings against incumbent Vora mayor and candidate of the Democratic Party, Fiqiri Ismaili, after two complaints of vote buying.
Police said the mayor gave about 100 dollars each to two people, asking them to vote for him in the local elections next weekend.
The two had gone to ask for jobs at Ismaili’s company, according to police, and informed authorities of the money they had been given.
Vora, a municipality sandwiched between Tirana and Durres is not to be confused with the larger coastal city in southern Albania, has been a hot zone in the elections following aggressive campaigning by the Socialist Movement for Integration, whose candidate is running against the Democrats as part of the Socialist Party-led coalition.
The Democrats have accused the SMI of Parliament Speaker Ilir Meta of pushing the police and health authorities under its control to destroy Ismaili’s food business and pressure his own activists to confess to nonexistent vote buying.
Edi Paloka, chairman of the Democrats’ parliamentary group, said police was using false evidence of threats of violence in Vora to scare off Democratic party supporters.
