Dakordësia për Kodin Zgjedhor/ Berisha: Nuk është marrëveshje, zbatuam vendimet e Gjykatës Kushtetuese

2024-07-27 15:26:00, Politikë CNA

Dakordësia për Kodin Zgjedhor/ Berisha: Nuk është

The chairman of the Democratic Party, Sali Berisha

The chairman of the Democratic Party, Sali Berisha, has reacted to the changes agreed between the opposition and the majority for the Electoral Code.

Through a statement to the media, Berisha said that there is no agreement regarding the Electoral Reform, recommended by OSCE-ODHIR.

He stated that the SP and PD have only implemented the decisions of the Constitutional Court, which are the voting of Albanians abroad and the removal of the 10,000 votes.

Full statement:

Dear citizens, good day!

With this message I would like to greet you and inform you of the following. During the last two days, you have heard hundreds and hundreds of times the word 'Electoral Reform' or the Berisha-Rama agreement etc. Regarding this great uproar, I declare the following:

First of all, all those who talk about Electoral Reform in this case deceive on purpose or are themselves deceived. There is absolutely no agreement regarding the Electoral Reform. The changes voted in the Parliament in the Electoral Code have absolutely nothing to do with the Electoral Reform recommended by OSCE-ODHIR for fair and honest elections in Albania. So not a single point of the recommendations of the OSCE-ODHIR has been addressed.

Secondly, the two problems addressed by the representatives of the Democratic Party and the Socialist Party and voted last night in Parliament have nothing to do with the electoral reform recommended by OSCE-ODHIR, but only with the implementation of 2 decisions of the Constitutional Court. Specifically for:

1. Voting of Albanians abroad, a basic Constitutional right for every Albanian citizen. This vote has been a long-standing solemn public promise before 2013 and after 2013 of the Democratic Party. We are the only country in Europe in which our compatriots abroad do not vote, and this is only because Edi Rama has categorically and categorically opposed this Constitutional right of Albanians abroad. The powerful lobbying of diaspora activists for this right and the decision of the Constitutional Court after their lawsuit in favor of the voting of Albanians abroad, forced Edi Rama to withdraw from his categorical opposition to the voting of Albanians abroad. However, he was for a vote with their representatives in proportion and carried out through the e-albania portal and the Albanian Post. Whereas the Democratic Party in cooperation with the representatives of the diaspora for a free Albania was for the voting of Albanians abroad for the candidate they want in the area from which they have left. Sicc is also required by them. In this process, Edi Rama demanded that every operation be carried out through the already hacked and manipulated e-albania portal and the militant Albanian Post. All of these were dismissed and it was decided that for these purposes a serious international post office would be contracted, which would not bring anything to the Albanian post office, but to the Central Election Commission. I think that this act puts an end to a massive violation of the Constitutional right to vote of Albanian citizens who today are probably more abroad than in Albania and which undoubtedly expressed a reminiscence of the political attitude towards Albanians abroad of the Hoxist regime. With this act, PDSH, as the party of Albanian freedoms and rights, fulfilled a promise and its major objective announced publicly dozens and hundreds of times. I am reminding you here that in the most repeated way I have stated on behalf of the Democratic Party that there will be no elections in Albania without the participation of emigration and the diaspora in the electoral process and this is already sanctioned in the Electoral Code of the country. I think that this is the most minimal service we could do to the millions of Albanians who left this country, the recognition of political rights denied in an unconstitutional manner until today.

2. The second decision of the Constitutional Court had to do with the quotient. This Court has decided that the quotient of 10,000 votes that had to be broken to win a seat in Parliament outside the protected list should be proportional so that the list is more open. I am emphasizing here that the Court did not decide to remove the penalty, but rather to reduce and soften it. The Socialist Party proposed that the quotient be reduced to 7,000 votes, while the DP requested the removal of the quotient altogether, thus making the places on the open list to be won by the deputies who have

Our solution that was finally agreed allows not only immigrants, but anyone else for reasons of their own choosing, work, employment, study, diplomatic or military service, treatment or other reason who is there for a certain time, to register safely not through the filter of the Ministry of the Interior, the government, but through the Central Election Commission with consensual rules guaranteed in a simple way, to express the vote freely.

We have also requested, and this has been reflected, the possibility of voting through an international express postal service to guarantee the impartiality of this service.

The opposition, PD, succeeded in making it possible for all Albanians living outside Albania to vote! All those who are outside Albania at the time of the elections, at a given moment, have the right to vote!

The proposal of the DP and the opposition was broader than the proposal of the SP, which reduced the vote only to legal immigrants.../ CNA