Butler: We congratulate the citizens

Natasha Butler, Spokesperson for the European Commissioner Stefan Fule, said that European Commission’s preliminary stance is based on OSCE/ODIHR evaluations.

“We note that these elections were held in a tense climate and high polarization. As the report underlines, our stance will depend on the politician’s behavior until the end of the process. I can say that we are monitoring the way this whole process is being held, including vote counting, the results and management of possible complaints. EU noted that the Albanian citizens performed a calm participation in these elections and the administrative structures in some areas guaranteed a safe voting process on the election’s day”, Butler declared.

“We value the citizens’ participation in such a democratic process. We expect these elections to fulfill European democratic standards, since this is a key priority for Albania’s next steps towards EU, as the Commission for the Opinion on Albania declared last December”, she underlined.

Asked several times about a more complete stance of the Commission on these elections, Butler repeated that EU cannot give a comment when 24 hours earlier, 50% of the votes were not counted yet by local authorities.

The Spokesperson of Mr. Fule answered to the persistence of the Greek journalist by suggesting him to contact the Albanian Prime Minister Berisha, for knowing when the vote counting process would finish.

“I have no comments on this. The vote counting process is still on. If you want, I can suggest you to contact the Albanian Prime Minister for knowing how much time will take to the election commissions that are under his authority to count the votes for these local elections”, Butler declared.

The European Commission asked the political parties and local institutions to continue the next steps of the electoral process with a constructive atmosphere.

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