Study: The state budget is used for electoral influences in Albania

2024-12-13 20:30:00, Politikë CNA

In Tirana, the Albanian Institute of Science published today the findings of a comparative study on the state budget and public finances in election years, where increases in funds, employment, and rewards stand out a few months before the elections. The experts requested the addition of restrictive measures in the use of the budget for electoral influence in favor of the majority, with means such as normative acts, annual bonuses and reconstruction funds.

The comparative study between election and non-election years of the Open Data Albania study center notes that the state budget seems to have aimed to influence the voters and derive electoral benefits for the majority in power.

The head of the Albanian Institute of Science, Aranita Brahaj, says that this becomes clear when comparing the electoral and non-electoral periods regarding the multi-year reconstruction program after the 2019 earthquake, individual payments for reconstruction grants, increased employment in the administration, as well as rewards and bonuses. for pensioners.

"We are talking about 3.7 billion ALL, which will be given for the first time in the spring. There have been bonuses for pensioners at different times, and they are usually distributed at the end of the year. This year we have two bonuses: one at the end of this year and another bonus in the spring of 2025, which is also the electoral spring," said Mrs. Brahaj.

In addition to some changes in the Electoral Code, the researchers requested legal prohibitions in the adoption of acts that go parallel to public procurements.

The legal expert at the Institute of Science and author of the study, Viktor Gumi, says that the normative act for reconstruction remains in force and has been applied for many years.

"Despite the fact that more than 5 years have passed since the natural disaster of the earthquake, this act remains in force and is a mechanism that is supplied, I estimate from the point of view of a political strategy, for political effect, for electoral effect. The most logical question at this point is: Why should we have special ad hoc rules in such a long period of time when the law on public procurement has very well-defined procedures in this direction and which has been evaluated by international institutions as a law very good in accordance with the directives of the European Union", Mr. Gumi said at the gathering.

The researchers pointed out that the Assembly needs to give up changing the state budget with Normative Acts, which are applied even during the election year or period, while the law on the budget system should add preventive mechanisms of possible abuse in the case of election years or less before the date of general and local elections.

The expert of economics and public audit, Lindita Lati, emphasized the consequences brought on the economy during the election years by the high non-profit expenses, the politicization of the budget, fiscal evasion and the reduction of revenues, low transparency and accountability, as well as the increase in the budget deficit.

"The game played with the budget deficit is not a pleasant game from our point of view as auditors. The year 2017 showed us that precisely in order to declare that the government had a budget deficit below 2 percent of GDP, which is a legal obligation, we saw manipulations of the budget deficit assessment methodology technique. Without mentioning here the hidden budget deficit, which comes from arrears", said Mrs. Lati.

The Electoral Code states that four months before the date of the elections until the formation of the new government after the elections, it is prohibited to propose, approve or issue legal or by-laws to provide benefits for certain categories of the population such as salary increases, pensions, economic support and social benefits, reduction or removal of taxes, fiscal amnesty, privatization or giving of assets or rewards, except in a state of natural disaster.

The experts claimed that this article needs to be detailed to increase the restrictions, while the State Commissioner of Elections, Ilirjan Celibashi, said that for the improvement of this article and many others, the political will of the parties in the Assembly is needed.

"For all the provisions of the Electoral Code and for all the problems under discussion, I think that we will have to modernize and make the entire regulatory framework for conducting elections in Albania more real. We have a 2008 code in force, which has been constantly patched. We need a new electoral code, and this work should start immediately after the next elections with the will of the political parties", said Mr. Celibashi.

The study notes that the Constitution does not define rules on the state budget in election years, while the relevant law specifies that the budget deficit is executed almost uniformly in the four quarters of the year with general elections, while the researchers estimated that the existing legal measures are insufficient to avoid the use electoral budget of the state./ VOA