TIRANA, Sept 21 /ATA/ – By Maela Marini/ The head of SP parliamentary group, Taulant Balla, said on Monday that constitutional amendments are already a reality, the lists are open and on April 25 elections it will be the open list system in place.
At a news briefing, Balla touched on the SP draft, incorporation of constitutional amendments in Electoral Code pointing out that we have proposed the 3 percent threshold, however we remain open to discussions.
“It is the sole formula that guarantees protection of gender equity in Parliament of Albania. In post- April 25 parliament, around 46 MPs should be women, which is in the interests of parliamentarism. As to the SP parliamentary group, out of 75 mandates, around one third will be women, which is a considerable number,’ Balla said,
Balla went on saying that this formula was not invented by us, it has been studied for a long time now by legislators in countries like Austria, Czech Republic and Croatia.
“Kosovo is close to my heart, but we thought that the model that Albania should adopt is that of Austria, Croatia, Denmark, Belgium, the Czech Republic. These are the best models for the time being.”
According to him, “democratic legitimacy stems from the number of votes that comes with support.” “The fact that the list is defined by the support that a candidate garners is a very big step forward. The number of votes for each candidate remodels the list. It is about those who receive the biggest number of votes ranging from 9 thousand in small regions to 12 thousand in Tirana, ” Balla said.
He added that he does not believe that DP will exclude itself from the process, but is confident that out –of- parliament opposition will contribute with concrete proposals in order to improve the draft.”
Balla said that we will deliver on all commitments made as part of June 5 deal.
/j.p/sm/
