Redistribution of electoral mandates

The opposition says that the majority will add a mandate in Kukes, since they see it as their stronghold. They will also decrease the number of mandates in Gjirokaster, where the opposition expects more mandates. Top Channel invited Bledi Çuçi, vice secretary of the Socialist Party for the legal matters.

Ilir Paço, Top-Channel – SP reported some recent changes in the Interior Ministry statistics, which are related with the growth of the number of voters in Kukes, and the decrease of the number of voters in Gjirokaster and Diber. Why should we believe that this could not be real?

Bledar Çuçi, vice secretary for the legal matters at the SP – In fact, the increased population number in this moment is significant, because it is related with the distribution of mandates in every district for the elections 2013. SP has been very attentive to this matter in May and June, and we asked a report of the population in all districts. We did this even in September and October. However, the recent information was taken only for May and June, because this information was denied to us for three months.

November was the month when the Albanian population would be analyzed by the Central Election Commission based on districts. Seeing the difference from June, there’s an increase in the population of Kukes, and it is the second biggest population increase in Albania, coming after Tirana, Durres, Vlore and Elbasan. It is a normal logic to think that there are irregularities, since people have the tendency to go in lower lands and more developed cities.

We analyzed the movements in every commune, and it is clear that the communes Topojan, Fierze, Shishtavec and Tropopje have an exaggerated population increase. Topojan, from 2773 residents, now has 166 more, six times more than the average of this district.

Ilir Paço – Can you explain why there is such a population increase in Kukes cannot have taken place, despite the logical arguments?

Bledar Çuçi – It seems that there’s a plan to artificially increase the population in Kukes to influence the division of the mandate. Based on the calculations of May and June, Kukes had three mandates, but in November there are 300 more persons in the district. It is clear that there have been interventions and the Socialist Party asked CEZ to make transparency on the names of these people.

Ilir Paço – Have you taken any answer from the Interior Ministry?

Bledar Çuçi – None! We are seeing the same scenario, when there was no report in the last three months for the population movement.

Ilir Paço – What consequences will there be if your request will not be taken in consideration?

Bledar Çuçi – We want transparency. This is the main think. The redistribution of mandates is a sensitive issue all over the world. In many of these countries, there are joint political committees that take care of this, not the election administrators. Since the Socialist Party was left without information in the last three months, we see that the state has been used in function of the majority for electoral intentions, which violates the Copenhagen criteria, and for this reason we will follow this case to the end.

Top Channel