New Electoral Code

This has been agreed by all political parties at the Parliamentary Commission for the Electoral Reform. Given the problems noted in the last two electoral processes, the Socialists and Democrats alike have established harsher penal rules for the elections. The consensual amends do not stop with the change of the punishment measures, but they give detailed explanation of these acts that from now on will be punished with prison, rather than fines.

The amends have carefully categorized as penal acts the document falsification and the change of the electoral result, the penal sentence for which is respectively 7 and 8 years to prison. One of the biggest problems of the Albanian elections is the fact that the commissioners abandon their duty, preventing many people from their right to vote and delaying the results. The Commissioners have committed these actions by order of the respective parties, but in the next elections they will be sentenced to 6 months in prison, if they will abandon their duty, and to five years in prison, when the act is made in cooperation and damages the elections’ result.

The Socialists and the Democrats have tried to eliminate family voting or voting more than once. These measures will punish not only the commissioners that allow these things to happen, but also the citizens who try to vote more than once.

The new changes, approved with consensus, aim to minimize the purchase of vote, a phenomena for which both parties accuse each other in every election. From now on, everyone that is caught offering money or other favors in the elections will be imprisoned, and the citizens that will accept this violation will be fined. The Socialists proposed to sanction with fines or imprisonment the obligation of employees to participate in electoral activities, and to sanction only with prison the obligation of children to participate in electoral activities.

These harsh penal amends will not be only part of the Electoral Code, but they will also be included in the Penal Code, which is being currently discussed in the Commission of Laws and then to pass in Parliament through consensus. The Parliament will have to approve the postponement of the deadline for the Electoral Reform Commission, which has entered in the area of hot debates. After resolving and regulating the relations of the media with the electoral subjects, the Socialists and Democrats must resolve the issue of the election administration, if this will be made by partial commissioners and the Central Election Commission or not. The Commission will also have to decide about the ways that will be used for voting and for the ballot count, if this will be made with electronic instruments or not.

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