European Forum

Albanian Socialist Party ends Parliamentary boycott

On September 5th the Albanian Socialist party decided to return to parliament after a three-month boycott following disputed elections last May. The move back into the most important legislative body of the country opens up the way to judicial reforms and is essential for the Western Balkan country’s EU integration process.

The Socialist party decided to boycott the national parliament after the disputed results of the May 9th mayoral elections in Tirana. The socialist party candidate and former mayor of Tirana, Edi Rama, had held the office for three consecutive terms and seemed to had won the latest elections by a razor-thin margin of ten votes out of a quarter million. However, the Central Electoral Commission decided to include miscast ballots, tipping the elections in favor of the Democratic party candidate Lulzim Basha by 93 votes.

Elections in the country have been by characterized by allegations of fraud ever since the fall of communism in the early 1990s; The Socialist party also does not recognize the electoral victory of Prime Minister Sali Berisha in the June 2009 parliamentary elections despite international observers judging the elections largely free and fair. The return of the Socialists into parliament yesterday was accompanied by many accusations back and forth of corruption and election fraud, indicating that the political crisis is far from over.

The move back into parliament comes at an important time in Albania’s EU integration process. The country applied for candidate status in 2009, but the European Commission rejected the bid last December, stepping up the pressure to fight corruption and tackle the political crisis that has been ravaging the political landscape since the 2009 parliamentary elections. The Socialist party is needed in parliament for a two-thirds majority that the Albanian constitution demands for several important judicial reforms. Socialist Party leader Edi Rama declared that he does not wish to block the entry of the country into the EU, with a new assessment by the European Commission coming up this October.

Sources: Focus1; Focus2; BalkanInsight1; BalkanInsight2; Image