Stonestreet: Monitoring vote counting process

Head of ODIHR observers, Stonestreet, with a rich experience on election observing since 1997 in many countries of the world, will be the man who will give the verdict for these elections. Not one day after the voting, as usual, but 48 hours after the process will be over.

The American Jonathan Street firstly visited Albania on 2003, without knowing that eight years later he would lead a difficult mission for certifying Albanian local elections.

On his first interview since his arrival in Albania, exclusively for Top-Channel, Stonestreet, the American that has lost access to his birthplace country, commented on the preliminary report, saying very clearly that the polarized situation of the electoral campaign will directly affect the flow of these elections.

“The basic legislation, which is the Electoral Code, has been scrutinized by ODIHR, Venice Commission and European Council. They have noted that the Election Code has the necessary elements for performing democratic elections, if implemented correctly and if there is good will from the political parties. Naturally, there are legal gaps, which we have declared in previous reports. There are still matters that need to be addressed to”, Stonestreet declared.

“We have also identified some specific cases on the local elections, like the absence of a zonal electoral commission for Tirana, the role of which will be actually acted by the Central Election Commission. So, there are legal gaps on electoral legislation. But I want to repeat that if there is good will from the political parties, this law can produce democratic elections”, he underlined.

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