Odhir pre-election report

Odhir pre-election report

The OSCE/ODIHR undertook a Needs Assessment Mission report (NAM) for local elections of June 30 in Albania.

The purpose of the mission was to assess the pre-election environment and the preparations for the elections.

Among the main concerns is the high degree of polarization and mistrust between the political parties.

According to the OSCE/ODIHR report this may have adverse effects on the electoral process.

“Most ODIHR NAM parameters underscored a high degree of polarization and distrust among political parties, as well as politicization of institutions which could negatively impact the conduct of the elections.

“Taking into consideration these aspects and the lack of follow-up to many prior ODIHR recommendations, all ODIHR NAM parameters consider an ODIHR large-scale election observation activity essential.

“Representatives of state institutions informed that all measures will be taken to ensure a transparent electoral process and acknowledged the added value of recommendations following an election observation activity,” wrote the report.

Regarding one of the most important issues of electoral processes, the sale of the vote, the report evidences a lack of transparency regarding investigations.

Meanwhile, the 2017 election recommendations have also remained unaddressed.

“The upcoming elections will be conducted under largely unchanged legal framework although some ODIHR NAM parameters did not exclude that some amendments to the legislation could take place prior to the elections.

“An electoral reform process restarted shortly after the 2017 parliamentary elections, but has not materialized any legal amendments due to lack of political will.

“As such, the majority of ODIHR electoral recommendations from 2015 and 2017 remain unaddressed,” the report continued.

The opposition's refusal to appoint candidates to the Central Election Commission and Commissions of Electoral Administration Zones (CEAZ) were also raised as points of concern.

“The opposition has declined to nominate their members to the CEC and CEAZs, thus leaving them politically imbalanced.

“This contributed further to a long-standing issue of low trust in the election management bodies, due to their perceived politicization, and many ODIHR NAM parameters raised serious concerns about Election Day procedures, particularly vote counting,” it was explained in the report.

In addition to a core team of experts, the ODIHR will request secondments from OSCE participating States for the appointment of 22 long-term observers to follow the electoral process countrywide.

Furthermore, 250 short-term observers will be tasked with supervising the Election Day procedures, including voting, counting of votes and the tabulation of the results.



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