German Analyst Says DP Played Big Role in Socialists’ Victory, Request for Basha’s Removal Logical

“The opposition itself played a big role in the victory of the Socialists which through its parliamentary and electoral boycott not only brought a dysfunctional parliament, but by the end of 2019 it deprived itself of the possibility of any kind of influence at the local level.”
This is the opinion expressed by Dr. Johanna Deimel, board member of the Southeast European Association, in an interview with DW on Wednesday.
According to Deimel, independent German analyst, the Democratic Party (DP) and its head Lulzim Basha took themselves out of the game and simply left the stage to Socialist Party (SP) head and PM Edi Rama.
SP won 74 mandates to 59 of DP which lost for the fifth time since 2013, while Socialist Movement for Integration (SMI) obtained 4 seats the lowest expected quota.
The German analyst said Rama’s victory has wide impact and the ODIHR and the EU have addressed the issue of vote buying. According to her, the request for the removal of DP head Lulzim Basha is a logical consequence. “Democrats need to be reformatted by content and staff.”
Deimel touched upon the creation by Rama’s socialists before the election of 9000 cards for 910,000 voters in the Tirana region with information about their work (many of them in the public sector) and electoral preferences and how voting could be influenced by gifts.
Further on she said that Rama calls these eavesdroppers ‘patronagers’ and the collection of data on voters that they do “normal”. This shows, in her opinion, how far he has moved from the concept of liberal democracy, where voting in the booths must be secret. “This should have a legal consequence, even in the EU context, it should not be accepted so easily.”
Dr. Johanna Deimel said what happened around the elections has not made it easier for Albania to convince critics within the EU.
“On the whole, the atmosphere is not necessarily positive about enlargement within the EU itself to put it bluntly. And it does not take much to jeopardize the negotiated approval for the opening of membership negotiations,” concluded Dr. Johanna Deimel. /argumentum.al