Glover reports at the EP on Albanian local elections

She said she founds it interesting that all, SP, DP and the SMI declare to implement the recommendations, but most of them have been not implemented.

She said that the legal frame could offer the basis for democratic elections, but the political parties misused their power and responsibilities, and there was no political will to respect the law effectively.

Ambassador Glover has been following the elections in Albania since 1996. She insisted in three main issues:
1 – implementation of the repeated recommendations in the report
2 – the legal amends should be done at least one year before the elections 2017, so that the electorate has time to learn about the new norms
3 – the judiciary reform

“An impressive work can be reached only if the international community works together to complete its work and avoids duplications”, Glover said.

The conclusions are included in the annual report of the European Commission for Albania.

“There is only one international observatory mission for the elections, and we support it with all that we can. We agree with the report and its recommendations”, declared the EU Ambassador to Tirana, Romana Vlahutin.

The EU Ambassador spoke about the pre-electoral campaign and focused on family votes, decriminalization of politics and an active participation of the civil society in observing the elections.

According to her, the depoliticization of the elections is a priority, together with the judiciary reform, the media independence and transparency in political party funds.

As expected, the hearing session about the local elections in Albania did not have much debate. Only four Parliament Members expressed their political stances.

Knut Fleckenstein declared that Mrs.Glover gave a clear view of the positive steps and irregularities of the elections in Albania, such as the accusations for vote purchase, politicization of the electoral administration, lack of transparency for the funds of political parties, and the fact that the recommendations had not been implemented. He added that the Albanian parliament must guarantee to work on these issues and implement them.

Eduard Kukan, follow-rapporteur for Albania at the EP, said that these are serious problems in which the political responsibility should be very clear.

“All these issues give the impression that the recent elections in Albania cannot be mentioned as really free and fair. I am concerned about other issues, such as the decriminalization of politics. Although these elections are a good chance for the political parties that were involved in the decriminalization issue, the reaction was very weak. I don’t see any progress on this issue from the government in the past nine months”, said Eduard Kukan from the European Popular Parties.

“According to analysts, these elections were key to encourage Albania’s pace for starting the negotiations. Same as in the past elections, they were fulfilled only partially and for this there were plenty of irregularities”, declared Ilhan Kyuchyuk, from the liberal group of ALDE.

“I was in Albania as part of the delegation, six months before the elections. There were constant disagreements between the opposition and the parties in power. Too much pressure, threat and expressions of violence. This was an unacceptable behavior”, declared Igor Soltes from the Green Group.

Romana Vlahutin notified the European Parliament Members that during these months will start the preparations for the elections of 2017, and she said that an ad-hoc special commission should be established for this purpose.

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