TIRANA, June 14/ATA/-The OSCE issued today the Interim Report on the upcoming June 30 Municipal elections in Albania.
The Report has analyzed the period May 24 to June 11, 2019.
The Report emphasizes that the elections for mayors and councillors in all 61 municipalities are held in the context of deep political division between the governing Socialist Party (SP) and opposition Democratic Party (DP) together with the Social Movement for Integration (SMI), the latter two withdrawing from parliament in February.
The DP and SMI as well as several smaller opposition parties are not participating in the elections.
The OSCE emphasizes the fact that in 31 municipalities SP mayoral candidates stand unopposed.
The Report highlights the fact that, President Meta repeatedly offered to facilitate dialogue among parties and in late May expressed willingness to postpone the elections. On 10 June, citing his constitutional responsibility to protect pluralism and concerns over public safety, he revoked the decree calling the elections. On 11 June, the SP initiated debate in the parliament related to validity of the decree on revoking elections and a potential impeachment of the president.
Some provisions of the Electoral Code remain open to varying interpretation and have been challenged before the CEC and the Electoral College of the Court of Appeals in Tirana (Electoral College), for instance as regards the issue of legal standing to appeal CEC decisions and candidate withdrawal procedures. There are no specific provisions for the conduct of unopposed elections.
According to the OSCE, within the legal deadlines, there are 36 political parties, 2 coalitions and 6 groups of voters registered as electoral subjects.26 Subsequently, 97 mayoral candidates, including 11 women, and 544 candidate lists of 2 coalitions and 14 individual parties with altogether 9,842 candidates, were registered by the CEAZs and the CEC.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Elections for mayors and councillors in all 61 municipalities are held in the context of deep political division between the governing Socialist Party (SP) and opposition Democratic Party (DP) together with the Social Movement for Integration (SMI), the latter two withdrawing from parliament in February. Opposition parties led by the DP have organized regular protests, many marred by violence, demanding the resignation of the government and the holding of early parliamentary elections.
The DP and SMI as well as several smaller opposition parties are not participating in the elections. In 31 municipalities SP mayoral candidates stand unopposed. On 10 June, the President revoked the decree calling the elections. On 11 June, the SP initiated debate in the parliament related to validity of the decree on revoking elections and a potential impeachment of the president. The Central Election Commission (CEC) continues preparations for the elections.
Mayors are elected in first-past-the-post contests, and councillors under a closed-list proportional system under a legal framework largely unchanged since the last local elections of 2015. The opposition withdrew from the electoral reform process that restarted shortly after the 2017 parliamentary elections, and it did not result in any legal amendments. The Electoral Code does not provide for any specific regulations for unopposed elections.
According to the law, the government and opposition parliamentary parties are entitled to be present at all three levels of the election administration. Initially, the DP and SMI publicly refused to nominate their members to the commissions, thus leaving the CEC and the 90 lower-level Commissions of Electoral Administration Zones (CEAZs) without opposition-nominated members.
Later, the CEC ruled that parties that do not stand for elections are not entitled to nominate commissioners. A subsequent appeal was dismissed by court in final instance.
Voter registration is passive, with voter lists based on data extracted from the National Civil Status Register. The Ministry of Interior undertook efforts to improve the register, including the allocation of proper address codes to voters. Some ODIHR EOM interlocutors, including one CEC voter registration auditor, raised concerns about the quality of this process. The final number of registered voters was announced on 25 May as 3,536,016.
In total, 97 mayoral candidates, including 11 women, and 544 candidate lists for municipal councils were registered by the CEAZs and the CEC. The law provides for a 50 per cent gender quota for candidate lists for local elections. Some candidates and candidate lists were rejected for missing document submission deadlines and/or not meeting the residency or gender quota requirements.
The official campaign started on 31 May. In addition to mayoral contests, two coalitions, one led by the SP and the other by the Red and Black Alliance party, as well as 14 individual parties, fielded municipal council candidates. While the overall campaign visibility remains low, public discourse is dominated by polemical exchanges and debate over whether elections can be held without the participation of the main opposition parties. The SP has publicly dismissed the President’s decree aimed at abrogating the elections and continues to hold rallies in the capital and major cities.
The media environment is diverse, but the main outlets are widely perceived to be politically aligned. The use of content produced by political parties in news programming remains a concern for many ODIHR EOM interlocutors. Broadcast media’s role in the campaign is highly regulated, with the Election Code specifying the amount of news coverage and free airtime for parliamentary parties based on results of the last parliamentary elections. The late appointment of the Media Monitoring Board has limited its capacity to oversee compliance of broadcast media with the legal requirements for proportional coverage.
According to the law, only political parties and independent candidates, whose rights were affected, have the right to file complaints against election administration bodies. The CEC considers complaints against decisions of CEAZs. CEC decisions can be challenged to the Electoral College of the Court of Appeals of Tirana. As of 6 June, the CEC received 14 complaints against CEAZ decisions, mostly related to candidate registration, but most of its decisions on these complaints have not yet been published. The Electoral College adjudicated 11 appeals against CEC decisions, including on candidate registration and on the right to nominate election commissioners, and upheld 8 of them. Most court decisions have not been published in full./j.p/p.s./
