Tirana Municipality at the Commission of Venice

01/09/2011 19:30

Although Tirana has its new Mayor already in office, for the Council of
Europe, the complexity and the events that took place during the local
elections are still an open case.

This is proved by a letter of the General Secretary of the European Council, Thorbjon Janglan, sent to the President of the Commission of Venice, Gianni Buquicchio, asking an opinion for the elections.

This is the full text of the letter sent seven days ago.

“I have no doubt that you are aware of the situation in Albania after the local elections, and especially for the controversy regarding the elections for the Mayor of Tirana. I have followed the situation closely, and I have addressed this case to the Albanian authorities, because I think that the European Council should make everything possible for helping Albania in preventing the repeat of such events in the future. For this I ask the Commission of Venice to provide an opinion that would help in improving the legislation, including the electoral practices in Albania, based on the recent experience”.

The CE General Secretary interest for the local elections first appeared on June 14th, when he sent a letter to the Permanent Representative of Albania in the Council of Europe, Margarita Gega, notifying her for sending the request to the Commission of Venice.

  1. To Mr. Jangland’s questions for the Commission of Venice were attached other four that were brought in by Socialist Party lawyers, which are:
  2. How the Central Election Commission should have treated miscast ballots?
  3. Did CEC have the competences to reassess miscast ballots and change the election result?
  4. Are we facing an unavoidable invalidity of the elections, since the CEC result table shows more ballots than the number of voters?
  5. Were May 8th elections free and honest, and did they fulfill the standards?


Chances are that the request of Mr. Jangland will be discussed in the next session of the Commission of Venice, which will be held in October.

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