Albania PM Says No Snap Polls If Democrats Lose Local Elections

Embattled Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha says he won’t call early elections if his Democratic Party loses the local elections scheduled for May 8.

Besar Likmeta

Tirana

Sali Berisha | Photo by : Albania Government's press office

“There will be no early elections,” Berisha said in an interview with local broadcaster TV Klan on Thursday, explaining his government’s reaction to a possible electoral loss.

The May poll is seen by many observers as a popular referendum on the ruling party and the opposition, which has been calling for early elections following a high-level corruption scandal and a violent anti-government protest in January that left four people dead.

Asked how he would define victory in the upcoming ballot, the Albanian PM hesitated, then said that victory meant “free and fair elections.”

Pushed further, he admitted that he would consider it a victory if his party was declared the winner of a majority of municipalities, whether large or small, even if it lost the popular vote.

Traditionally in Albania, electoral victory in local elections has been defined by success in large cities, like the capital Tirana with some 750,000 residents, and results from small, rural municipalities are less significant.

The May 8 local elections are considered by both local and international observers as a test for Albania’s democratic credentials, but also as a popular referendum on its feuding political parties after the January 21 anti-government riots that left four protestors dead and dozens wounded.

The unrest came during an opposition protest after the publication of a video tape, where former Deputy Prime Minister Ilir Meta and ex-minister of economy Dritan Prifti are heard discussing alleged corrupt deals.

Both Prifti and Meta, who have been indicted on corruption charges, have denied any wrongdoing.

The ruling party and the opposition have blamed each other for the violent riots, and the recent tension between Edi Rama’s Socialists and the ruling majority of Prime Minister Berisha has aggravated an already poisoned political climate which has been in a troubled state since the disputed June 2009 parliamentary elections.

Berisha’s ruling Democratic Party and the Socialist opposition, headed by Rama, have been locked in a power struggle since the June 2009 elections.

The Socialists allege that Berisha stole the elections through voter fraud, while the ruling majority rejects the accusations as baseless and maintains that the polls were the best the country has ever held.