TIRANA, June 28 /ATA/ – The United States Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Matthew Palmer called on Albania’s opposition leaders to make clear to their supporters that there should be no violence on June 30th, that nobody should interfere with the rights of the people to participate in the elections.
In an interview with the Voice of America, the US senior official stated “we expect the elections to go forward on June 30th.”
“We hope that the conduct of the elections will be smooth and transparent. After the elections there’ll be an opportunity for the Constitutional Court to be formed, and we hope that any disputes about the timing of elections can be worked out through Albanian institutions,” Palmer added.
Asked about the election’s legitimacy, Palmer said “it’s certainly less than ideal that there’s a local election being conducted without participation of the opposition, but that doesn’t mean that the elections themselves are not valid.”
“People will have the opportunity to come out and vote and express themselves. Nobody should interfere with that. People who choose to participate, who choose to vote, should be allowed to do so freely. The people who are elected should be allowed to take office and to govern. We will have people out in the field as part of the ODIHR observation mission, and also independently as part of the Embassy observation team, looking to see what happens on the ground. We do hope that the events of June 30th take place peacefully and in as smooth a fashion as possible,” he said.
Peaceful protest is a part of democratic governance, Palmer stated, adding “that’s perfectly normal.”
“We saw on the 21st of June that the opposition is entirely capable of making its case peacefully and in a manner that is consistent with democratic practice. We’d like to see the events of June 30th move forward with no violence, and we would urge the leaders of the opposition to make that clear to their supporters,” he added.
“Interfering with elections could be grounds for exclusion from the United States. Beyond that I can’t get into hypotheticals, but yes, absolutely. It is the responsibility of the opposition leaders in this circumstance to make clear to their supporters that violence is an unacceptable tool. We’d also like to hear the same thing from, from the government. This is something that you can’t say enough. It’s important that everybody in Albania hears this clearly from the leaders that they look to for support and guidance. It’s important that they hear it from the international community, including from the United States. It’s something that I have said many times and will repeat here again: violence is unacceptable,” Palmer stated.
Ideally – he went on saying – “we’d like to see an election that included the opposition as well as the government parties. We made that point clearly and forcefully to the opposition leaders in advance of the decision to boycott this election. But that doesn’t mean that the election itself should not go forward. After the election, there will be an opportunity to form the Constitutional Court. It’s entirely possible that the court will decide that the elections should be re-run, but that’s for the court to decide and not individual politicians.”
As to the potential development after July 1st, Palmer said there’s a couple of things that we would hope to see, come July 1st.
“One is a dialogue between the government and leaders of the opposition on electoral reform. There’s a blueprint for electoral reforms consistent with the ODIHR recommendations, and we would like to see agreement on a path forward to electoral reforms that allows for future elections to be conducted in a manner that has broad support and in a transparent and accountable fashion. We’d like all of the parties to reaffirm support for justice reform, which is fundamental to Albania’s European aspirations, and we’d like to see the formation of Albanian institutions, including in particular the Constitutional Court that will allow for the smoother functioning of the Albanian democratic process,” he stated.
Commenting on the recently published intercepted phone conversations, Palmer said “those are serious allegations, and they deserve to be investigated.” “We would support an investigation by Albanian institutions and Albanian authorities, an investigation that is professional, an investigation that is transparent, one that produces a path forward towards resolution, but these are absolutely serious allegations that require a serious investigation,” he added.
Regarding the responsibilities that the Prime Minister Edi Rama should bear for his government over the past six years, Palmer said that “there’s enough responsibility to go around for all of the leaders to accept their fair share.”
“What we’re interested in is a path forward to Albania’s future. The disputes, the political disputes, need to be resolved not by international actors, outside forces coming in to resolve differences or referee disagreements, it should be solved by Albanian institutions. This is a NATO member, it’s an EU aspirant, this is an important partner for the United States, and we would like Albania and Albania’s leaders to take responsibility for managing the political challenges that Albania is faced with,” Palmer concluded.
/m.m/u.sh/
