OSCE: Campaign with incidents

OSCE / ODIHR published the first report on the verge of Local Elections, referring to the events that have taken place in the period from March 27th to April 11th.

“A TV ad by the NGO “Zgjohu”, before the official launch of the electoral campaign, attacked the Socialist Party leaders and the Mayor of Tirana. The Socialist Party asked for an investigation accusing that the TV ad was financed by public funds. The campaign intensity hiked after April 8th. Harsh personal attacks have been present during the campaign, with both parties accusing each other of corruption. Socialist and Democratic party have both centered their attention to the race for the Tirana municipality”.

The OSCE report mentions the two armed incidents, that of April 1st in Tirana and the one of April 2nd in Lezha. “According to the police, the incident that took place in Tirana was politically motivated, while the one of Lezha had no political background. On April 4th, Tirana Municipality Construction Chief Inspector was shot and wounded by a fire arm. One day before, the report says, he had ordered the removal of political banners from illegal places in the city. The investigations are still going on. The campaign materials, like political banners, have created clashes in some occasions.

The OSCE – ODIHR report mentions the registering system for the voters’ list as passive. “As for the preliminary voters’ list, published on October 2010, the Socialist Party presented its concerns that consisted of voters being illegally added to the civil registers of Municipal units, including Tirana electoral areas controlled by the Democratic Party and the Socialist Movement for Integration, a movement that aimed to change the political balance on those areas. The Socialist Party requested regular updates on the preliminary voters list, in order to verify the changes and to see if they were acceptable. This was denied by the Interior Ministry, which replied that the Electoral Code provides that all parties will receive the preliminary voters’ list together with the final one. On April 9th, the Interior Ministry declared that the final voters’ list had 3,164,589 names, 23,000 names less than the preliminary one.”

As for the Media, OSCE / ODIHR says that on April 8th, the Media Monitoring Board started observing 62 TV stations and 2 radio stations, sending daily updates to the Central Election Commission.

The report writes that May 8th local elections are being held for the first time without Constitutional amendments, and also are the first local elections to be held after the approval of the New Electoral Code on 2008.

Parliamentary Elections of 2009 resulted the Democratic Party coalition as winner, with 70 deputies of 140 in total.

“The political climate after these elections continued to be very polarized, accompanied by harsh rhetoric and personal attacks and protests.”

“Tensions rose after the January 21st demonstration, leaving as consequence violent clashes between protesters and security forces. Four persons lost their lives and many others were wounded. The Parliament started investigating the event, while the General Prosecutor started another investigation to shed light on the killings. These investigations have spurred political controversy and still haven’t been solved”.

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