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Albania Edges Towards New National Elections

19 07 2007  With no compromise in sight for Parliament’s stalemated presidential selection, the opposition is eager to force an early election.

By Besar Likmeta in Tirana

Albanian political parties are unable to agree on a new president and the deadlock is pushing the country towards fresh elections, potentially bad news for its fragile stability.

A fourth round of voting for president is scheduled in parliament for Friday July 20. Opposition politicians boycotted three previous rounds to deprive Bamir Topi, deputy head of Prime Minister Sali Berisha’s Democratic Party, of the necessary quorum for election.

If Friday’s ballot also fails to produce a winner, only one more round can be held before the end of current president Alfred Moisiu’s term on 24 July. The Albanian constitution requires that if a president is not selected within five rounds the parliament must be dissolved and elections called within sixty days.

Edi Rama, leader of the opposition Socialist Party, declared that his party is preparing for new elections and has started touring the country and meeting with grassroots supporters.

“We have already started our engines,” Rama declared.

A majority of Albanians oppose early elections, however. A survey by the Democratic Institute for International Issues and the research company Agenda said 61 per cent of respondents thought early elections would have a negative impact on Albania, while only 22 per cent thought elections would be positive.

Naim, a small business owner in the town of Durrës, said holding elections during Albania’s tourist season would hurt the economy.

“Elections are always the basis for instability. There is a lot of political fanfare and accusations that destabilise the political balance. Whenever there are elections in Albania, the public administration just stops functioning,” he told Balkan Insight.

The poll also found early elections could result in further political deadlock. Both the centre-right majority led by the Democratic Party and the left-leaning coalition headed by the Socialists were supported by 44 per cent of the electorate, the survey found.

The opposition and the majority political parties had earlier negotiated a deal that General Arjan Zaimi, Albania’s representative to NATO, would stand as their compromise candidate.

But the agreement, negotiated just two weeks ago, collapsed after Berisha’s government insisted the deal also shorten the mandate of Chief Prosecutor Theodhori Sollaku to five years. The chief prosecutor has a lifetime position under Albania’s constitution. He can be removed only by the president on parliament’s recommendation.

Sollaku has responded that Berisha was unfairly placing him in the middle of the political standoff by accusing him of corruption.

“It is a problem for the politicians to resolve the crisis. They either agree or should go into early elections. Berisha should not slander my name. He is turning himself into a banana republic premier,” Sollaku said.

Parliament’s three rounds of voting so far has seen three candidates, with Topi as the candidate of the ruling centre-right coalition, former Socialist Prime Minister Fatos Nano, and the Democratic Alliance party head Neritan Ceka.

The third round, which was held on 14 July, saw more MPs participating and Nano’s exit from the race. Nano, though the Socialist candidate, failed to gain the support of new party boss Rama, who is also the mayor of the capital Tirana.

Nano fell out of the race because only the top two candidates can move on to the next ballot. Topi received 50 votes, Ceka 32 and Nano just three. Most of the votes received by Ceka, whose party holds only two seats in the assembly, came from the centre-right coalition.

Though Topi and Ceka remain the only candidates, the real drama is whether any opposition MPs will defect and vote in the two remaining rounds. The governing coalition is two seats short of the necessary quorum of 84 deputies required to validate the election.

In a bid to woo MPs from the left to vote for Topi, Berisha has dangled the possibility of inclusion in his centre-right coalition.

“We are open to deputies and political forces who want to cooperate for the selection of the new president,” he said.

The Democratic Institute poll found that if the president was elected by popular vote, Topi would be the choice of 40 per cent of Albanians. Moisiu the choice of 27 percent. Nano drew support from 15 per cent.

The poll also found dissatisfaction with the political process, with 60 per cent of Albanians saying they wanted to elect the head of state. Seventy-five percent of respondents believed a popularly-elected president would be more responsive toward the people than one selected by parliament.

“After they get elected they disappear from their electoral zones for the next four years. It is always about what is convenient, while they don’t really bother about the people who elected them. It would be better if we could vote for the president on our own”, said Arjan, a young Tirana taxi driver.

Besar Likmeta is a Balkan Insight contributor. Balkan Insight is BIRN`s online publication.