The process in Albania “has just begun”

“After these elections, the process not only has not finished, but it has just begun. We can do something with the Congress and our units there, but naturally more efforts are needed from the Albanian authorities and the political forces there. Allow me to underline that it is important for them to come together and try to find a solution, especially for the improvement of the electoral process. Another point that I want to underline about the reporting process of the elections in Albania, is the counting process, which was excessively delayed, and this I think that increased the tensions even more, especially in Tirana”, declared Dr. Volkram Gebel, Rapporteur for the elections in Albania at the Congress.

“Most of the voters were handled well, did the good thing. The toughest part was the counting process, and mainly in Tirana. That was because of the tension between the political parties in Albania, and we saw in Tirana the best of it, or the worst of it,” added Amy Koompanschap, head of the observing team in Tirana.

“This method to put the ballots in front of the screen, for the centralization of the counting, made it a much longer process. I think in most of the European Countries there is a delegation of the local authorities, and they bring up the results to a central commission, and this makes the process shorter”, Gebel added.

“I was impressed by the way people who worked together the whole year around with each other, in those days they couldn’t work together. They were on the voting stations, but after that, when the counted started, there was no trust among each other and that made it very hard to come to a solution, to count the ballots and to not delay the procedure for so long, to block the procedure and the counting process”, Koopmanschap added.

Dr. Gebel says that the rules of the electoral process must be improved and the Congress could give some recommendations, after sending the observing mission.

“There’s one point which is rather important for me. Since you have problems, and you always have problems with the electoral process, the local members and those of the Central Electoral Commission must be more independent, not depending so much by the words and directives of the parties”, he underlined.

The same line was followed by Amy Koopmanschap.

“I think that in Albania it is very difficult not to be part of one of the main political parties. It would be better if people were independent, not so close to the parties, so that they can address responsibilities to the counting process, and to take responsibility for the process of voting and counting, and also for bringing it further in the democracy”, she said.

“The close results do not give trust to the people. The initial result of 10 vote difference in favor of Rama and the next result of 60 votes difference in favor of Basha did not create trust for a real legal and honest process. When there is trust, this difference of 10 or 60 votes can be seen differently. But when there is no trust between the politicians or the people who are voting, it is very difficult to have this result as the one that the Albanian voters gave in these elections. You’re always thinking if it worked well, if it was honest, and this is a question to which you cannot really answer”, underlined the head of the observers’ team in Tirana.

“Of course, we gave some recommendations, and you have seen that the majority and everyone else supported them. But this is mainly a problem of the Albanian people themselves. You must go towards a constructive dialogue between parties. From outside, we can only give recommendations, but you must improve the process by yourself”, Gebel declared.

To the question how he considered the fact that there were no Albanian members in the room during the debate, he answered:

“It is a very difficult question and I don’t want to comment, because I am German and this is a problem of the Albanians”, Gebel concluded.

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