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Read, Debate: Engage.
| topic: | Election |
|---|---|
| located: | Albania |
| editor: | Katarina Panić |
According to public opinion polls on the eve of the general election in Albania, two thirds of the population citizens wished for change. However, more than half of those who voted on 25 April didn't say so. Either that, or the regime just made it look so.
Once Edi Rama came to power in 2013, there were great expectations both from the nation and the international community. Today, Albania is among the European countries with the highest risk of money laundering. It is also among the most corrupt countries on the continent, according to Transparency International.
There is a wide range of undemocratic practices that the latest authoritarian ruler in the Balkans brought to Albania, thus distancing it from the EU accession talks: the silencing of the media, protection of drug dealers and organised crime, nationalistic rhetoric, human trafficking, and more.
It was widely believed that the wave of political changes that coursed through the Balkans would come to Albania too. After the fall of the long-lasting regimes in Montenegro, Kosovo and Bulgaria, Albanians had their turn. Still, they didn't follow their neighbouring countries' response to the political establishment.
Prime Minister Edi Rama and his Socialist Party took the third term in the country since its first multi-party elections after the fall of communism three decades ago. While Rama kept all 74 mandates in the 140-seat parliament, the opposition block, the Democratic Party and the Social Movement for Integration, will have 63 MPs altogether.
A report by international election observers from OSCE/ODHIR said that vote-buying remains a severe problem in Albania, among other issues such as confrontational language. At least two shootings, one of them fatal, have marked the heated campaign. After supporters of the two biggest parties clashed, a local politician was shot dead. In another incident, another local politician was shot in the leg.
Last Friday, Rama requested President Ilir Meta's dismissal, claiming he unlawfully and contrary to the constitution supported the opposition in the election campaign, damaging the image of the presidency.
Meta was accused of inciting violence right before the elections when he called on voters to "sharpen their pitchforks, scythes, axes and whatever they have… and have them ready for Sunday if a single vote is touched." Apparently, it was more than a single one.
Image: Suhejl Fazliu.
