Soreca: Party Leaders to Ensure the Highest Integrity of Candidate Lists

Tirana Times
By Tirana Times February 23, 2021 17:38

Soreca: Party Leaders to Ensure the Highest Integrity of Candidate Lists

Two months before the 25 April parliamentary elections, the EU Ambassador in Albania Luigi Soreca called for party leaders to be responsible for the integrity of the candidate lists. “Party leaders have a legal and moral responsibility to ensure that candidate lists are comprised of people with the highest integrity. The country deserves legislators who will support the EU reform agenda of fight against corruption and organised crime,” said the Eu Ambassador. Through his opening speech at the forum “Governance for Change: Proposals from Civil Society”, Soreca echoed the words of the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson. During an official visit Johansson did last week in Tirana, she also asked Albanian political parties to take responsibility for the integrity of the names that will be proposed as candidates in the next general parliamentary elections.

Beyond calls to respect the decriminalization law, the ruling Socialist Party has had serious issues in regard to its candidate lists in past elections. Only from the last municipal elections, held on the 30th of June 2019, at least 6 candidates from the Socialist Party have been verified or accused to have broken the decriminalization law. Perhaps the most famous case from the previous municipal elections, was the newly elected mayor of Shkodra Valdrin Pjetri, who had to resign before taking office, after being accused by the opposition that he had been previously sentenced in Italy to “18 months in prison and 1,000 Euro fine” for drug trafficking in 2003. The law prohibits individuals that have been involved in 80 different criminal offences, to participate in elections as candidates for public office.  

During his remarks, Soreca focused also on the role the civil society organizations have played and are playing in the democratic process of Albania, encouraging them to help citizens “reject and report any violation, fraud or intimidation that may occur,” confirming that the EU will have also its observation teams deployed all over Albania on Election Day.

Tirana Times
By Tirana Times February 23, 2021 17:38