Immigrants will vote in Albania in next year's elections

 Political Council for Electoral Reform; Clockwise: Hajdari, Bylykbashi, Gjiknuri, and Vasili

 Albanian immigrants will be able to vote in the next parliamentary elections. The decision has been taken on Wednesday evening during the meeting of the Political Council for Electoral Reform, where the parties agreed on all changes in the Electoral Code. "Immigrant voting is a guaranteed right now. The law provides for the procedures to be followed by the CEC. The vote will be made possible after they are registered with their will, to declare their addresses in the civil registry", explained the socialist representative Damin Gjiknuri. For her part, the representative of the parliamentary opposition, Rudina Hajdari, was somewhat skeptical about the implementation of the immigrant vote. According to her, "it will take a lot of bylaws for this to happen and be feasible in the next election, and we need to move on now."

The meeting also noted the parties' final agreement on electoral reform. They were able to overcome the last stalemate which is related to the new Election Commission, its organization, composition and formula for the selection of members.

"Our third proposal was accepted, ensuring that the process for the establishment of the CEC will make it possible for the Commission not to be a body which will have persons who will be politically appointed, and by the other side to be controlled by the majority. The opposition made it possible for all guarantees for the Albanian voters and for the electoral subjects that are competing to be complete and for the government not to be able to affect the election administration", declared after four hours of discussions and negotiations, the representative of the Democratic Party Oerd Bylykbashi.

"Today we completed the work for all amendments to the Electoral Code, where we found agreement on all remaining points, whether for the election of the CEC, the composition formula, CEC mandates, and many elements that had remained under discussion," Gjiknuri explained, underlining that “we met the demands of the opposition, for those guarantees that existed in the current law, despite the fact that some of the ODIHR standards required changes. But for us, it is more important that the electoral law reflects the concerns, fears or the recent past of the opposition, in order to enter the elections with a universally accepted law".

For the SMI representative Petrit Vasili, “a second, very important phase is already starting, which is related to the implementation of the electoral reform. According to him, there will be "strict monitoring so that every word written in the Code is implemented to the end, to cut off the hands of anyone who would like to manipulate the result or ensure victory with stolen and purchased votes."

But the agreement between the majority and the extra-parliamentary opposition does not finally close the cover of the ordeal of electoral reform, as the parliament will also need the votes of the opposition in the hall, whose representatives insist mainly on intervening in the Constitution in order to change the electoral system, in favor of open lists. Ms. Hajdari said that in the Parliamentary Commission for Electoral Reform, they will stay true to their demands. "The votes are unified, we have a request for constitutional changes. If all the elements are taken together, we will have a successful electoral reform, without these fears that we will not move on and we will have only one agreement that was made to meet some basic and insignificant demands of the extra-parliamentary opposition", said Mrs. Hajdari.