TIRANA – As July 30 is approaching when majority’s constitutional changes will be voted by Parliament in plenary session, the last for this season, the political scene in Albania has returned to the tense atmosphere with ambassadors involved in the electoral reform in intensive mediation between parties, which stick to their adverse positions.
Prime Minister Edi Rama said sharply after the end of the meeting of the Political Council on the electoral reform on Tuesday that Parliament will vote on open electoral lists on July 30 which is the response to the extra-parliamentary opposition.
“You want 100% open lists! The July 30 vote does not prevent this. We are ready to discuss it without losing a single day after July 30. You want a pre-election coalition and you cannot separate from the SMI! This is not hindered by the July 30 vote either. We will solve this if you have a positive will,” Rama said in a post on Twitter.
According to him, the opposition’s obstacle is neither constitutional nor legal, but simply political. “You want to take hostage the issue of the opening of the electoral lists and drag out the process with absurd alibis. But you do not have a consensus on this from us and you cannot do it without us, as you did when you burned the mandates and when you ran away from the elections!”
No details were given on the meeting that Rama had early on Tuesday morning with Ambassadors of US, EU and UK.
In the meantime the Democratic Party (DP) co-chairman of the Council, Oerd Bylybashi said after the meeting of the Political Council that the majority has not changed its positions, emphasizing that the condition for the continuation of the discussion are 100% open lists and maintaining this model of pre-election coalitions in the general elections to be held in spring next year.
According to him, the SP intends to approve constitutional changes that violate the June 5 agreement.
“In today’s meeting of the Political Council we asked again from the majority to express in principle if it agrees to proceed with the proposal to open 100% the lists of candidates, keeping intact the electoral coalitions as they are today and the formula for the distribution of the mandates,” said Bylykbashi, who told the media that the united opposition was faced again with the rejection of the Socialist Party (SP).
“The SP has not changed an inch of its position, of unilateral action and unilateral change of the Constitution. We made it clear as we have made it clear before that there are actions that will undermine the June 5 Agreement,” the DP representative in the Council said revealing the proposal of the opposition to draft a joint amendment regarding the opening of the lists of the candidates and without touching on anything else in the Constitution, and to do so with the help of the international expertise. /argumentum.al
