TIRANA, July 10/ATA/- Open lists should not jeopardize an achievement of which I am proud of, and the Socialist Party is the locomotive of this battle, the inclusion and representation of women in the Parliament, the Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama said on Friday.
In his remarks, the Prime Minister Edi Rama emphasized that, “formulas and technical issues will be discussed, but to us they are not taboo subjects.”
“I have constantly expressed our ambition, which coincides with the need of the public and with the general interest of the country. The depoliticization of the election administration, a key recommendation repeated over the decades by the OSCE/ODIHR, has not been met because it is being totally opposed by the Democratic Party (DP) and the group it represents,” he said.
“Given that our determination was to give a real chance to the involvement of the non-parliamentary opposition in the process and to alleviate as much as we could the burden of fear and prejudice of the DP, we decided to make a concession which is the greatest imaginable concession by a political force that has the majority of seats and that in this case infringes upon itself,” the premier Rama said.
“We have reached an agreement with the parliamentary opposition to review the issues addressed by them. We have managed to create understanding to establish a broad consensus in parliament, including vote on important laws, related to the integration that require a qualified majority,” the Prime Minister Rama added.
“This is a matter of principle related to Albania and the Albanian citizens and the Albania’s efforts to meet obligation to adopt electoral reform in accordance with the OSCE/ODIHR recommendations and the best international standards. A standard that is not a miraculous recipe, but which is universally recognized,” premier Rama underlined.
“Referring to the code of good practice of the electoral issues of Venice and an interpretative statement regarding the non-change of the legislation on the electoral system, it is not about changing the system. There are 3 elements. First, the system itself. We have a regional proportional system today. This is not affected even though the opposition demands a national proportional system. The change in the size of constituencies is not affected. While the CEC, or the Central Election Commission of Albania is affected as a result of the June 5 agreement,” he added.
“This is not a violation and the Code regulation of this change is at the discretion of decision-making. On the other hand, whether Venice and all other instances dealing with electoral issues, issues such as open/closed lists, are simply considered corrective mechanisms of a system. The system is not affected, the corrective mechanism is in function of what the parties consider as the improvement, “ the Prime Minister Rama concluded. //a.i/
