EP: Albania lost its chance

The head of the Delegation for Balkan, Eduard Kukan, declared that Albania is experiencing a political stalemate and recent elections did not help overcoming it.

“I am concerned and I fear that these elections will not help Albania overcome the political stalemate. I know that it seems pessimistic. The worst scenario would be the continuance of the political blocking of state procedures. I know that I sound pessimistic, and I would be the happiest man on earth if history would prove me wrong, because I want the best for Albania and the Albanians”, Kukan declared.

EU Reporter for Albania, Nikolas Huntis, warned an explosive crisis due to the political crisis added to the economic one.

“These elections did not soften the political crisis. On the contrary, these elections added more fuel to the fire, as Mr. Kukan said. The future of this country does not seem bright. There is an economic crisis too. Albania is paying and will pay the cost of the economic crisis in her country, if the crisis coming from its neighbors was not enough. Adding the political crisis to the economic one, I think that the combination of both will be explosive”, Chountis declared.

“Continuing to support without conditions one side, encourages the other side to escalate the grave situation even more. And there might be violence, for not saying civil war”, declared Victor Bostinaru, Vice Chair of EU Delegation for Balkan.

The other Greek EU deputy, Georgios Koumoutsakos, who observed elections in Albania, declared that the election process in this country is not over yet, but standards were not met and the process is definitively damaged.

“Albania is not a fragile democracy anymore. It has been in democracy for decades now, and we cannot ignore this fact. It is clear that the democratic process in that country is not appropriate. There are problems, if we will compare it with our standards and requirements. I think that there remains no other choice than giving up from it”, Koumoutsakos declared.

The Special observing delegation for May 8th elections reported at the EU Parliament Foreign Committee, debating on the double standards used on these elections, voting as a family, for the electoral finger-ink, the problems of the preliminary reports and the final one of the Central Election Commission, the unclear ballot boxes, political pressures and the tense situation.

The conclusion was that the electoral process was not over, but it was definitively damaged and the result is not credible yet.

“In some occasions we noted familiar voting. There have been many delays for opening some voting centers and confusion when they had to close”, Kukan evaluated.

“The family vote, different to what we were told, really existed. For those who do not understand it, it was like this: the head of the family took three or four identity cards with him and voted for all of them. Voting centers had the voting places very near, which enabled father and sons, or husband and wives to vote and show to each other who had they voted for. In other voting centers there were cell-phones, although in theory it was forbidden keeping them inside the voting center. People could easily take a picture of their vote with the cell phone, and showing it later to a commission member or their employers. We saw that people went out without the finger-ink, for which we were told that it could not be deleted from fingers. This ink would disable people to vote elsewhere. But at the first voting center we went to, we saw people leaving without the ink on their fingers. We asked the commissioners about this, and they told us that this ink was invisible. But the ink was not placed at all. Me and Mr. Kukan tried that ink on ourselves, and I deleted it for only 10 minutes. Mr. Kukan didn’t even try to wash his hand”, said Mihail Tremopoulos, Greek EMP.

“The last time, when the Socialist Party asked to open the ballot boxes, Mr. Berisha declared that it was impossible, because the Constitution did not allow opening these boxes. And we accepted it. Long live the Constitution. We have to accept it as the legal foundation of a country. But it wasn’t the case in these elections. And it doesn’t end with this. The government did not request to open the ballot boxes for all voting centers of Tirana, but only some of them. And not only that, but they opened only the boxes expected to give miscast ballots for only one party. I want to make clear that this procedure is unprecedented. In only one voting center, they found 200 ballots more than the total voters participating in it. How did this happen? What kind of miracle happened in Tirana?”, said Victor Bostinaru.

“The devil is hidden in the details. How is it possible that ballots had the same color, and no one was consulted on that? The ballots should have had one color for the Mayor and another for the Municipal Council. How is it possible that officials of the voting center allowed more than one vote from the same voters to be cast in the same ballot box? It doesn’t matter if the vote was for the Mayor or for the Municipal Council. This error should have been avoided. Thirdly, and this is very important for this Parliament, I don’t think that we serve any purpose if we judge one side or another. If we do this, we would add fuel to the fire. The discussion why the ballot boxes were opened this time, and not the previous time, must be left to the justice authorities. I hope that at least the judicial system will function in Albania. Otherwise it is useless speaking about EU membership”, underlined Kasoulides Ioannis, vice chair of EPP.

“The legal part of the electoral core raises some questions, but this must be left to experts and respective institutions. The stability or destabilization of the country must be in the hands of the political parties and their leaders. In this new situation, the European Parliament will help if we speak unanimously, coordinated with the EU Commission and EU Council, taking in consideration only the interest of this country and of its citizens”, Kukan declared.

“We heard about violation of the Electoral Code in Albania. This is only one side of the problem. But on the other hand, other parts of the process had problems, and this does not leave space for a credible final result”, Chountis added.

This was the first time when European Parliament Members did not divide in two groups, protecting their sister parties in Tirana. While the European Socialists continued using the same language in favor the Albanian Socialist Party, the right centered European Parliament Members lowered the tones and only made comparisons to their standards. This debate went on without any comment from the right centered German EMP, Doris Pack, who arrived only after the discussing session was over.

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