SP, new appeal at the Electoral College

The Socialist Party has not run out of her legal efforts, because on July 2nd they filed another complaint at the Electoral College, which seems that for technical reasons has not been made public.

Trusted sources at the Tirana Court of Appeals secured for Top-Channel a copy of this appeal against the Central Election Commission.

The object of this appeal is the nullification of decision nr.1160, issued on 28 June 2011 by CEC, “for refusing to review the request nr.164 of the Socialist Party of Albania”, and for determining the obligation of CEC for reviewing the decision that was based on four articles of the Electoral Code.

The appeal, signed by the SP secretary for legal matters, Fatmir Xhafaj, states that the arguments given by CEC and the decisions nr.1094, dated 16 June 2011 and nr.1158, dated 23 June 2011, are the most evident indicators that the CEC reviewing refusal for SP request nr.164 is completely unfounded.

“Decision no. 1158, dated 25.06.2011 has approved with its third clause the elections’ result for the Mayor of Tirana, declaring mr. Lulzim Basha as winner. This is the decision that declared him a winner, and from this moment, the electoral subject has the right to demand the invalidity of these elections. This is what the Socialist Party has made with the request addressed to the Central Election Commission”.

SP legal advisers argued that the appealing request nr.164 has been presented to the Central Election Commission within the deadline, because now there are new deadlines for the appeals. Here is the argument:

“Based on what article 123 and 160 of the Electoral Code provide, and the order issued by the Electoral College, which has nullified the previous decision taken by CEC for approving the result, we now have a new initial result for the approval of the summary table, because there are no previous decisions of this kind, starting from the Court’s decision and after. Since it is a new decision, in absence of previous decisions, based on the abovementioned dispositions, we have new deadlines for presenting the appeal. These appeals start from the date of the most recent decision that has approved the result, which is CEC decision nr.1158, dated 25 June 2011, and the calculation of the deadlines will be made by starting from that date, according to article 124 and 126 of the Election Code”.

The argument of the Central Election Commission, according to the Socialists, is completely unfounded and moreover it  consisted of stances that have nothing to do with the reviewing phase provided by article 130 of the Election Code.

SP declared that CEC is the competent institution for reviewing this request, starting with the presented request and by fulfilling the conditions required by article 124, 130 and 160 of the Electoral Code.

SP requested the Electoral College to nullify the decision no.1160 taken by CEC and its obligation for reviewing the appeal of the Socialist Party.

Sources from the Court of Appeal confirm that after casting lots, the judge that will lead this panel will be Sashenka Jonuzi, and the other members are judges Astrit Kalaja, Dhurata Haveri, Meriban Mullai and Maria Qirjazi.

What’s common for the two SP appeals at the Electoral College, is the invalidation request for Tirana elections.

The Commission of Venice has made a study titled “a report based on numbers for the management of an electoral fraud”, dated 16 December 2010, for the “Commission for Democracy through law”, part of which is also Albania.

Authors of this report are two experts, the Bulgarian Nikolai Vulchanov and the Swedish Anders Eriksson.

But what does this study provide for similar cases to what has happened in Albania, when the inconsistency of the final result table is 754 votes?

The answer is at point 140 and 141, where are treated the issues of recounting and reelections.

“When there are human errors during the vote counting process, the candidates can ask recount or reelections. This happens when the candidates have noted open manipulation or when they are in a situation when it is impossible to determine the final result. The request for recounting the votes or for reelections must be referred to each separate voting center, or for all electoral areas. This happens when the result is too narrow and when it is believed that the reelection would affect the result.”

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