Albania Elections Urged to Reform Opposition

Analyst in Albania Lutfi Dervisi tells Kosova Prees that the May 14th local elections in Albania are the clear victory of the Socialist Party.

He cites the opposition's fall, and separately, of the DP in its bookies, as in Shkodra.

According to him, the opposition has won in second or third-hand municipalities.

“has a clear victory for the Socialist Party, a poor performance of the opposition due to some factors, but also the divisions it has among the opposition. In surprising results was the fall of Shkodra, which has been a city governed by right forces and the DP over the past 33 years. Tirana is not that there are any stories, in the sense of the incumbent reconfirming of Chairman Veliaj, that even because of the obvious advantage it has when more than half of the ballot boxes are counted. The result of 61 municipalities for all of Albania is expected to be confirmed tomorrow. The Union for Victory coalition has managed to get a poor result, primarily 5-6 second-hand or third-run municipalities”, he says.

Even the connoisseur of political developments in Albania, Ben Andoni, says local elections in Albania are the opposition's failure.

However, he estimates that yesterday's election process has had major deadlocks in the election administration, initially with electronic identification.

He also mentions vote trading, which, according to him, is becoming sophisticated.

It looks like there's been a huge impasse in this election. The first with biometric identification, second with training of numerators, commissioners and all the selection parts. There has been a poor alert to electronic devices, which some have been taken for nearly the last few days without being controlled. This led to problems that we in some countries went back to manual identification, and then voting. All of this showed that our administration still suffers major problems, which more stem in the great growth of administration and politicisation. Now it's time for the CEC to be an absolutely nonpolitical institution”, Andoni claims.

On the other hand, analyst Dervisi says the opposition in Albania must have internal reflection after local elections, rather than contest the results in a priori manner.

“Oposor needs reforms and new figures to become a reliable alternative. It needs to be presented somewhat differently, as the great power burden the SP has taken in central power for 10 years and now takes most of the local government should be an advantage of the opposition, but has not translated. Internal reflections other than the dispute file that will not be missing should be priority”, he declares.

Meanwhile, Andoni says such a great loss of opposition, despite the fact that the SP is in power for 10 years is bad news for democracy in Albania.

“This is very bad news for the Albanian opposition. I hope that new currents of strength can be generated between them, but I see it very difficult. The legal Democratic Party that could do something, not only failed to do something, but part of it joined Mr Berisha and campaigned with him”, he points out.

The voting counting process has ended in a large number of municipalities in Albania, where the Socialist Party has so far been known to have won in 34 municipalities.

While the coalition together wins, it will run seven municipalities.

According to the current results, the Socialist Party has won in Lushnje, Saranda, Cerrik, Patos, Ligozhd, Rrogozhina, Bulqiz, Belsch, Roskovec, Tropoj, Drupoje, Përmet, Skapar, Polican, Konispol, Kikash, Fushe-Arres, Libovo, Pusevo, Kamez, Vora, Elbasan, Pupe, Delvine, Clojë, Kolke, Tequre, Pajkun, Pubs, Elbs, Elbsajan, and Delbas.

A total of 243 polling stations have been counted in Shkodra so far.

That's where SP candidate Bennett Bahri Beci is leading.