With elections set for June 23, Albania faces major test

TIRANA, Dec. 3 – Albania’s President Bujar Nishani on Monday set its next parliamentary election for June 23. Next year’s polls will be a big test for Tirana to avoid another contested vote like that of 2009 as it may set back its bid to join the European Union.
Albania is under pressure from the European Union to hold free and fair elections if the country wants to join the bloc.
Albania’s last parliamentary elections in 2009 saw Prime Minister Sali Berisha’s Democratic Party win half of the 140 seats in parliament and gain a parliamentary majority when it allied with the Socialist Integration Movement. Subsequent allegations of fraud from opposition groups plunged the country into a political crisis.
Brussels says Albania cannot join the EU until it holds elections that meet international norms and improves its efforts toward democracy. Some 3.1 million people will be eligible to vote in Albania’s elections to parliament. There will be again opposition Socialist Party, led by Edi Rama, bidding again to unseat Sali Berisha, leader of the ruling Democratic Party and Albania’s prime minister for the past eight years.
Economy may be the key tool. At least that has been shown by the increasing focus set from the opposition on the issue. Patriotism may be another one that came out in the last days. The opposition has also made the fight against corruption (pledging to fight corruption seemed to be the tool bringing back the Democrats to power in 2005) and the government involvement as its public tool in the last months.
In the last election, the Democratic Party took half of the 140 seats in parliament and clinched a slim majority with the support of the Socialist Integration Movement. There may again be a close result and very much may depend on the sides that the LSI, or the newly-created Red-and-Black Alliance and the New Democratic Spirit will take.
The EU says Albania must hold free and fair elections and improve democracy before it can become an official candidate for membership of the bloc. Both the EU and United States have been pressing Albania to overcome an atmosphere of intense political polarization between the Democrats and the Socialists that has slowed and sometimes paralyzed reforms.
But usually elections are a good time for the political parties, for their often useless fight against each other. Despite being like that for the last two decades common Albanians have yet to learn that unkept political pledges should be punished.