Albania PM Pans Opposition on Poll Reforms

Tirana _ Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha has condemned the opposition for allegedly trying to block electoral reforms.

“Electoral reform should be finished in the shortest term,” said Berisha. “We are waiting on the Socialists that seem to move one step ahead and two behind,” he added.

This week parliament is expected to initiate a parliamentary commission that will draft the new electoral code according to a series of constitutional changes approved in April.

The changes were agreed by the two biggest political parties in Albania – Berisha’s centre-right Democratic Party, and the Socialist Party, headed by the Mayor of Tirana, Edi Rama.

In essence, the reforms transformed the parliamentary voting from a first-past-the-post system in which voters selected individual candidates to a system based on regional proportional representation.

Under the new rules, voters no longer cast ballots for candidates of their choice but only for parties, which then nominate their representatives to parliament.

The abrupt change towards a system of regionally-based proportional representation has also left the smaller allies of the Democrats and Socialists unhappy.

They fear they will lose out under new rules obliging parties to cross a 10-per-cent threshold and are requesting that the changes be put to a referendum.