Albania Passes Litmus Test

When Albanians headed to the ballot box on Sunday to elect a new parliament, they were fully aware that the world was watching.

Repeatedly, EU officials both in Brussels and Tirana had said that an electoral process according to international standards would be considered as a sort of litmus test for Albania’s membership aspirations.

In a closely fought electoral campaign between incumbent Prime Minister Sali Berisha and Socialist head and Tirana Mayor Edi Rama, the country’s recent promotion into NATO membership and a fast-track accession to the EU were hotly debated issues.

Most of Albania was plastered in campaign posters bearing the NATO and EU logo, while the media, both local and international, debated if the country’s political class had matured enough, considering that since the country emerged from the Stalinist regime of former dictator Enver Hoxha in 1991, its polls had marred by plenty of fraud and violence.

“If NATO was a political party I am sure it would have secured a landslide in the Albanian elections,” the head of the alliance’s parliamentary assembly, Bruce George, told reporters in Tirana on Monday. He was part of an army of elections monitors who oversaw the polling process. 

When Berisha officially submitted the country’s application for EU candidacy status during a visit in Prague during the Czech EU presidency on 28 April, few saw more in it than an electoral stunt targeting an internal audience ahead of the 28 June poll.

"There is a long road ahead of Albania and I hope it will be crowned with success," Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek told reporters a joint news presser in Prague after the ceremony.

Certainly, one of the main obstacles on the road that Topolanek was referring to was Sunday’s poll, which according a report released by the international observers mission - which included the OSCE, ODIHR, NATO and the Council of Europe - demonstrated “marked improvements” from previous electoral processes but did not yet meet international standards.

Election day was largely calm and peaceful, and the atmosphere was improved. Observers assessed the voting process slightly more positively than in previous elections, with minor procedural violations.

Tangible progress

According to the report, tangible progress was made with regard to the introduction of new voter registration and identification procedures, and the adoption of an improved legal framework; however, these improvements were overshadowed by the politicization of technical aspects of the process and violations observed during the campaign, which undermined public confidence in the electoral process.

"The country has matured, it has made progress, and many of the fears we had only some months ago have not materialized,” said Wolfgang Grossruck, vice-president of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and special coordinator of the OSCE short-term observer mission, in a statement.

“I'm certainly happy about the progress we saw, but there are also a considerable number of issues that need to be tackled, in particular the polarized political climate," Grossuck added.

"These elections demonstrated that the Albanian people have the [...] potential for building a democratic society like that in other European countries. Now there is a huge responsibility of the authorities and main political stakeholders to work hard in order to establish confidence among the citizens for a democratic electoral process," Corien Jonker, head of the delegation of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly, told media.

"Progress has been achieved since the last parliamentary elections in 2005,” said Bruce George. “However, greater efforts still need to be made by all political forces in order to meet demanding international standards."

However, in contrast to NATO, in which Albania secured membership due to the intense lobbying of former US president George W Bush, the country has more skeptics to overcome in the EU. Not only must it improve its electoral process, but it also must work to strengthen the independence of the judiciary and fight endemic corruption and organized crime.

Positive hesitation

With votes still being counted in what is turning out to be a head-to-head race between the incumbent Berisha and his Democratic Party-led coalition and the Socialists challenger Rama, and despite its problems, some local observers believe that the poll could very well boost Albania’s chances of receiving a positive reply on its EU candidate status application.

“The report was a bit harsher in its language than we expected, because differently than in previous elections Albania is now evaluated as a country member of NATO and not as a country in transition,” Gjergji Vurmo, an EU expert and research director at the Tirana-based Institute of Democracy and Mediation, told ISN Security Watch.

“Some of the elements in the report could help those backing Albania’s candidacy inside the EU, while at the same time the issue that standards were not met could surface by its detractors; however, I believe this election will be enough in terms of poll standards to achieve candidate status, though elections with fully [recognized] international standards will be needed for further improvement,” added Vurmo.

“In its entirety, the ballot process was mostly calm and peaceful without incidents that would undermine its legitimacy, and the two main rivals were mature in their public reactions after the polls closed,” Dardan Malaj, the politics editor of the Albanian daily newspaper Shqip, commented for ISN Security Watch.  

“The EU had repeatedly said that the elections are a sort of litmus test for Albania, and from what the observers are saying about the poll I am not sure that we passed with flying marks,” Malaj added.

The real winners

However, with the counting of the ballot boxes still ongoing, some political commentators are saying that it is too early to give predict the final results and their ramifications in terms of EU integration.  

“It’s too early to speak about the EU candidacy, while the counting of the votes is still ongoing,” political analyst Mentor Nazarko told ISN Security Watch. “The international observers are waiting to give a final verdict when the process is over and we should wait, too.” 

Regardless of whomever is declared the winner of Sunday’s race, most seem to agree that if the process is finalized well, the Albanian people will be the real winners.

“There are no losers today,” Berisha commented when the polls closed. “The poll has been a victory for the Albanian people on their route to the European Union.”