Electoral reform, Borchardt urges completion

Electoral reform, Borchardt urges completion

At the first meeting of the Electoral Reform Commission following the extension of their mandate to the end of July, the OSCE Ambassador Bernd Borchardt urged members to ensure the reform is finalized within the new deadline. 

According to Borchardt, the time has come for concrete results to be achieved.

"I urge the commission to finalize the electoral reform within the new deadline. Now is the time for concrete results. Along with the OSCE / ODIHR, we offer our full support to the Albanian parliament in implementing the reform," stated Borchardt.

Commission member, Luan Rama also spoke about low productivity. The SMI MP said that this is a "repeated" meeting that the same speeches are heard, but there is no final product and this puts the reform at risk.

"Meetings offer nothing new. Results need to be achieved," declared Luan Rama.

The Democratic Party's ally and the leader of the Republican Party, Fatmir Mediu raised the concern of the fading attention that the two major parties are giving to the smaller parties. 

Mediu's reaction came when the commission co-chairmen, Oerd Bylykbashi and Bledi Çuçi demanded that the media leave the room after they gave their speeches.

"The SP and DP are bypassing the other parties in this process," said Fatmir Mediu.

The two co-chairmen responded that the time has come for the commission to discuss the technicalities and therefore demanded that the media should not be present, as it would encourage the politicization of speeches.

"We agreed on the calendar and will discuss the technicalities," said Çuçi & Bylykbashi.

In a workshop organized for the first time, the commission discussed the ODIHR recommendations regarding the most recent election. 

For this matter, Ambassador Borchardt said that the OSCE is attentively following cases of electoral violations denounced to the prosecution and is awaiting the court decisions.

EMISIONET