Governing Party in Albania Seeks to Assemble a Coalition

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Photo of the Day: Ilir Meta during champagne election, against Berisha coalition

Published: July 4, 2009

TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Nearly a week after parliamentary elections, Albania’s governing Democratic Party began to assemble a coalition government on Saturday, even as the opposition Socialists decried the move as premature. Although the electoral commission is still recounting ballots from some polling places, it declared that Prime Minister Sali Berisha’s Democrats had won enough seats to form a government. Election officials said late Friday that the Democrats won 47 percent of the vote, giving them 71 seats in the 140-seat Parliament, just enough to form a government. The Socialists, led by Edi Rama, the mayor of Tirana, won 45 percent, or 65 seats. A Socialist splinter party, the Socialist Movement for Integration, came in third, the Central Elections Commission said.

Mr. Berisha, acknowledging that he could at best form a weak government if the results were upheld in the recount, invited the Socialist Movement for Integration to join him in a coalition if the final total confirmed the current count. The Socialist movement’s leader, former Prime Minister Ilir Meta, accepted the invitation, saying it was “the only one in the country’s interest.”

But the main Socialist Party charged that the Democrats were trying improperly to influence the vote count by declaring victory before all ballots from the election last Sunday were tallied.
The Socialists insisted that the electoral commission, which is recounting ballots from some polling stations after complaints about irregularities, could not declare that the Democrats had won 71 seats while the recounts were pending. They accused Mr. Berisha of trying to sway the electoral commission and threatened to hold street protests.

“I appeal to Berisha to abandon the idea of imposing himself on the Albanian people,” said Gramoz Ruci, a senior Socialist politician, adding, “unless he wants to meet and face the people in the street.” Albania joined NATO in April and has been under intense international pressure to ensure that the vote was free of the fraud that marred its first six elections held after the Communist government fell in 1990. Both main parties ran on similar platforms, pledging to lift Albania out of poverty and secure its goal of joining the European Union.

Election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe issued preliminary findings saying that there were improvements and fewer irregularities in this year’s voting, but that some violations persisted, like late openings of polling places. Full final results are expected in days, after all disputed ballots are counted. Based on the partial count, the election commission said half of Albania’s 3.1 million registered voters had cast ballots.

Note: Which is really politically opposition of Albania? Albania is losting the democratic values of political pluralism. A left coalition Party such as LSI of Ilir Meta, cooperates with his "politically enemy" Berisha, is the last paradox of the country which aspirates to joint EU.

Now the question is: Which is really politically opposition in Albania?

If inside Albanian pluralism is lost the Albanian opposition, may be the new national strategic of albanian pluralism is to "target the Greeks", such is happening in Kosovo, against Serbs and FYROM against Slavs!!!

Albanian Opposition threatens street protests

By LLAZAR SEMINI

TIRANA, Albania (AP) . Albania's opposition Socialists charged Saturday that the ruling Democrats were improperly trying to influence the country's lengthy vote count by declaring victory before all ballots from last week's national election were tallied. Albania joined NATO in April and has been under intense international pressure to ensure the June 28 vote was free of the fraud that marred the first six elections held after the Balkan country's communist regime fell in 1990.

But the Socialists threatened to hold street protests after election authorities declared late Friday that Prime Minister Sali Berisha's Democrats had won enough seats to form a government. The country's electoral commission is re-counting ballots from some polling stations following complaints about irregularities and the Socialists insist it cannot declare that the Democrats won 71 seats while recounts are still pending. They accuse Berisha of trying to sway the electoral commission.

"I appeal to Berisha to abandon the idea of imposing himself on the Albanian people ... unless he wants to meet and face the people in the street," said Gramoz Ruci, a senior Socialist politician.
Both main parties ran on similar platforms, pledging to lift Albania out of poverty and secure its goal of joining the European Union. Election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe issued preliminary findings saying there were improvements and fewer irregularities in this year's voting, but that some violations such as family voting and the late opening of polling centers persisted.

Election officials said late Friday that Democrats won 46.69 percent, giving them 71 seats in the 140-seat parliament — the exact number needed to form a government. Tirana Mayor Edi Rama's opposition Socialists won 45.36 percent, or 65 seats, with a former prime minister's coalition in third place, the Central Elections Commission said. Berisha, acknowledging that he could at best form a weak government if the current results are upheld in the re-count, invited the third-place SMI to join him in a coalition if the final results confirm the current vote count.
SMI's head, former Prime Minister Ilir Meta, accepted the invitation, saying it was "the only one in the country's interest."

Full final results are now expected in days, after all disputed ballots are counted.
Based on the partial count, the election commission said 50 percent of Albania's 3.1 million registered voters had cast ballots.

Greeks in Albania have not still their Political Ethnic Party

The comment below is a fals propaganda to manipulate with the right to vote in Albania by International media in which HURP is an ethnic Greek Party. This is not true. HURP has real support from minorities and mostly by Greeks but over all it is an Albanian Party. Under this philosophy of the "democratic values and the peace" between Tirana and Athens, as old propaganda of "Friendly bridge" Tirana shows to the observers of NATO and the European Union, the presence of Greeks in Albania, there is only one mandate to the Albanian Parliament in total of 140 PM included to HURP.

Three months ago, the statistics of the Albanian state claimed for the ethnic Greek minority to be only 1%, of 4.2 million inhabitants of Albania.
The propaganda must stop continuing to claim that Albania respect all the human rights in the country. The Greeks have not still an official language together with political and civil rights of much of the population which lives in southern Albania historically known as the northern epiriote, mostly emigrant in Greece and USA.

At the last parliamentary elections, which unfortunately still not finished, there were three registered parties with background ethnic minority; The Party for Justice and Integration (PDI) with nationalist program against a democratic country such is Greece, the party of Macedonians in Albania and the Party of Albania's Roma.
Meanwhile the country is to declare that Ethnic Greek Minority in Albania, have still not an ethnic Greek party to guaranty political and civil rights as long as Tirana does not recognize the official Greek language in autonomous municipalities where the Greeks live from thousands of years, in southern Albania known as Northern Epirus.

See web official page about the Program of HURP (PBDNJ): http://pbdnj.com/mbipartine.html

The original article of Balkaninsight

Albania's Ethnic Greek Party To Stay LeftTirana

The Union for Human Rights, PBDNJ, which represents the ethnic Greek minority in Albania, rejected on Thursday speculation that it will return to the governing coalition of Prime Minister Sali Berisha after Sunday’s parliamentary elections. “We will not change our position,” said in a press conference, the party boss Vangjel Dule. “Our trait has always been loyalty, integrity and coherence in decision-making,” he added.

PBDNJ has ruled with Berisha's centre-right government for the last four years but internal rifts before the elections pushed them towards a coalition with the Socialist Party headed by Tirana mayor Edi Rama.

more see: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/20783/

Albania's electoral shortcomings could delay EU bid

The Balkan nation's vote Sunday struggled to meet international standards – potentially embarrassing the US, which backed Albania's successful bid for NATO membership.

By Besar Likmeta

Photo: An armed policeman stands by as ballot boxes are transported to counting offices in the Albanian capital Tirana after voting to elect 140 new lawmakers ended Sunday.
Hektor Pustina/AP

Tirana, Albania - At the George W. Bush cafe, next to the table where the former US President sat to discuss a US-funded microloan program with a baker, a barber, a tailor, and a shepherd when he visited Albania in June 2007, Ertion Muca had a hard time convincing his friend why he voted for the Albanian opposition.

As elsewhere in this tiny Balkan nation of 3.6 million, the crowd was spilt between the ruling Democratic Party of incumbent Prime Minister Sali Berisha and the Socialist Party led by his arch rival, Tirana's mayor, Edi Rama. Three days after voting ended in Sunday's parliamentary elections – seen as a crucial test of the country's democratic credentials as Albania, a new member to NATO, applies for membership to the European Union – near-complete results showed the Democrats were ahead by just more than one percentage point.

Democrats claimed victory Wednesday, but it was unclear whether Mr. Berisha had secured enough seats in Parliament needed to govern alone. Senior Socialist party official Ditmir Bushati accused the Democrats of hatching a "black plan to grab our victory," adding that "these elections, unfortunately, have fulfilled no standard. The result has been significantly deformed."
International election observers agreed that the vote did not meet international standards.

But in a joint statement issued on Monday, the foreign monitors concluded that Albania's election process demonstrated "marked improvements" over past elections marred by fraud and violence. The overall progress, including the lack of violence Sunday, will have to be weighed against these most recent electoral shortcomings as Europe considers Albania's bid to join the EU.

"The country has matured, it has made progress, and many of the fears we had only some months ago have not materialized," says Wolfgang Grossruck, vice-president of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) parliamentary assembly. "I'm certainly happy about the progress we saw, but there are also a considerable number of issues that need to be tackled, in particular the polarized political climate."

'No losers today'

The Democrat-led government, which was in charge of organizing the electoral process, sounded a far more positive note. "There are no losers today," Mr. Berisha commented when the polls closed. "The poll has been a victory for the Albanian people on their route to the European Union."

However, not every one is convinced. "By failing to make greater progress, Albania has missed a golden opportunity to put the question of its [EU] candidate status beyond doubt," says Gabriel Partos, an Eastern Europe analyst with the Economist Intelligence Unit. "If Europe's economic problems exacerbate [EU] enlargement fatigue, Albania's electoral shortcomings could yet be a set-back to Albania's EU hopes over the next year or two."

US credibility on the line?

The US invested a lot diplomatic credit for Albania's accession to NATO in April, and if fraud is once again presented in the electoral process, Washington could be deeply embarrassed. More details about alleged voting irregularities are expected to emerge in coming days.
However, some analysts believe that despite Albania's shortcomings the decision to offer it NATO membership was the right one.

"The fact that the elections were far from perfect doesn't undermine the sound reasons for including Albania in NATO," says Gabriel Partos, an Eastern Europe analyst with the Economist Intelligence Unit. "In any case, NATO itself is not an alliance of democratic saints, but like other multinational organizations, such as the EU, it helps 'level up' democratic standards among its newer members so they can catch up with the established democracies."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0701/p06s12-woeu.html