Assembly announcement on the approval of the "Electoral" and "Territorial"/ Bardhi: There was no vote at the Conference of Speakers

2025-10-15 14:40:00, Politikë CNA

Assembly announcement on the approval of the "Electoral" and

The Head of the DP Parliamentary Group, Gazment Bardhi, commented to journalists at the blue headquarters on the announcement distributed by the Assembly that there was agreement at the Conference of Speakers on the two draft decisions proposed by the SP parliamentary group for the establishment of the Territorial and Electoral Reforms.

Bardhi stated that the Assembly's announcement was false because according to him there was no vote in the Conference of Speakers and no consent from the DP parliamentary group. He said that they have submitted three requests for which the SP parliamentary group has requested time until tomorrow to review them.

"Many journalists have asked me for a comment on a false announcement by the Assembly, regarding today's meeting of the Conference of Mayors. I want to clarify, fortunately the Conference is with audio and the minutes are published, that there was no agreement from the DP parliamentary group on the two draft decisions proposed by the SP parliamentary group, specifically on the establishment of the Commission for Electoral Reform and the establishment of the Commission for Administrative-Territorial Reform.

Following the position that the DP parliamentary group adopted at the meeting of October 8, we have presented three concerns-requests in relation to both draft decisions. First, the guarantee of real equality between the position and the opposition and consensus in decision-making in these committees. Second, the invitation and engagement of experts from the OSCE/ODIHR, the EC and the Venice Commission in both committees, respectively. Third, the start of the work of the Electoral Reform Committee must also await the latest OSCE/ODIHR report, which is expected to be made public within a few days, for the May 11 elections.

Specifically, we have requested the amendment of point 3 in the draft decision on Electoral Reform, which seeks to impose Tom Doshi's party as the opposition party on the opposition. While the SP group has specified that it has 8 members on the electoral reform committee, the following formulation is 8 representatives of the SP and 8 representatives from other parliamentary parties. While on the one hand they say that we provide a balance between the majority and the opposition, on the other hand they dictate to us who the opposition is. And we have requested, according to the standards of parliamentary tradition, to maintain the format of the formulation that every electoral reform committee has had, where representatives of the parliamentary groups are determined, 8 from the SP, 6 from the DP, 1 from the Alliance for Change and 1 from the Freedom Party.

Regarding the Territorial Reform, the proposal was that the majority should have the majority, so the commission should consist of 17 members, divided 9 to 8, our request was equality, preserving the parliamentary tradition, which was consolidated with decision no. 1 of 2014 when the Territorial Reform Commission was established in 2014 and with decision no. 13 of 2022 when a commission was established again that guaranteed equality between the majority and the opposition and had two co-chairs with the right of veto, one from the SP and one from the DP. As a result, we requested that points 3, 10 and 11 of the draft decision be amended and the discussion was handled in principle, there was no vote. The chairman of the SP group asked for time until tomorrow to gather his group for these three requests that we presented at the Conference of Chairmen. "Therefore, I want to condemn the public deception that the Speaker of the Assembly has distributed as a notice of the Assembly as if these two draft decisions were approved by agreement, news that was received unverified by the media and has become a fait accompli. There was no agreement, we presented these three requests and the SP group has taken time to think until tomorrow and to conduct the relevant consultation in its parliamentary group," said Bardhi. /CNA