Albania Opposition to End Parliamentary Boycott

Albania’s opposition Socialist Party will end its six month long boycott of parliament on Thursday. The party had held the boycott to protest the results of the June 28 parliamentary election, which were narrowly won by centre-right Prime Minister Sali Berisha and his party.

The Socialist parliamentary group on Wednesday decided on the return to parliament. The decision follows intense crisis talks in the last two weeks held under the umbrella of Albanian President Bamir Topi and aided by a mission of the Council of Europe.

“In less than six months our refusal to be part of a façade parliament that hides an electoral crime has highlighted the crisis of democracy in Albania,” Socialist leader Edi Rama said in a press conference after the meeting.

Rama and Prime Minister Berisha have been locked in a stalemate over the results of the June 28 parliamentary elections.

The Socialists have boycotted parliament since the new session began in September, claiming that the government’s alleged fraud was to blame for their electoral loss.

Until Thursday they had conditioned their return to parliament on a recount of the electoral ballots of the parliamentary poll.

Although declaring his openness to a parliamentary investigation of the election, Berisha has stubbornly rejected the possibility of a recount. He argues that the opposition has exhausted all legal options and that he cannot override the judicial process.

The return to parliament of the 64 elected Socialist deputies comes on the threshold of the constitutional limit of absence, which ends next week. If the MPs had continued to be absent past the constitutional limit, they would have been replaced by other party candidates in the electoral lists.

Not everyone in the opposition party agreed on the prolonged boycott, and Rama’s critics argue that it produced little for the Socialists.

“It’s been five months since I and some other colleagues expected our party to enter parliament, and we believe we are late,” said Socialist MP Ben Blushi, one of the fiercest critics of Rama’s leadership.

Blushi and a handful of other MPs have repeatedly criticised the boycott of parliament as ineffective and blamed their party's poll loss on Rama’s poor handling of the electoral campaign.

Although the Socialist parliamentary group will return to parliament on Thursday, it is not yet clear if it will stay after its 64 MPs take their oath of office.

The Socialists are expected to file two bills in parliament on Thursday seeking a recount of the parliamentary elections ballots. They warn that if Berisha’s Democratic Party does not back them, they will return to the streets to initiate mass protests.

“We expect the majority to reflect on our proposals,” Socialist MP Namik Dokle said in a statement on Thursday. “It’s up to the majority to accept or refuse them,” he added.