History of Post-Communist Albania - 2009 and The Subsequent Political Gridlock

2009 and The Subsequent Political Gridlock

Albania joined NATO along with Croatia in April 2009, becoming the organization's 27th and 28th members. Albania also submitted the official application for membership into the European Union on April 28.

In July Sali Berisha's centre-right Democratic Party won the 2009 parliamentary elections by a narrow margin. The election was contested under a new regional Party-list proportional representation system, which had been approved only six months prior to the election. Berisha's alliance won enough seats to form a government, though it fell one seat short of a majority during the elections of Jun 28th 2009, having to join forces with a splinter socialist party, the Socialist Movement for Integration of Ilir Meta, whom Berisha appointed to the posts of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, and later Minister of Economy, Trade and Energy. It is the first time since the start of multi-party democracy in 1991 that a ruling party has been forced into a coalition through not winning enough seats on its own. The close campaign and close result of the elections, coupled with some irregularities in the process prompted the Socialists to accuse the governing Democrats of trying to sway the institutions and public opinion in their favour in order to form a new government. The Socialists warned that they would organize protests. Gramoz Ruci, a leading Socialist politician declared that unless Prime Minister Berisha abandons the idea of imposing himself he would "meet and face the people the in the street."

In November protests begun in Tirana, led by opposition Socialist Party leader Edi Rama, against the allegedly rigged vote counting in the 2009 elections. Berisha had refused any recount of the votes, on the ground that the Albanian Constitution does not foresee such procedure. The political crisis between government and opposition worsened over time, with the Socialists abandoning parliamentary debates for months and staging hungerstrikes to ask for internal and international support.

In May 2010 the Socialist Party started a new civil disobedience campaign against the government, asking for a new count of votes. The campaign included another hunger strike of opposition leaders The prime minister, Sali Berisha and opposition leader Edi Rama met in Strasbourg alongside representatives of the European Parliament in a business dinner to try and resolve their differences. The meeting produced no results. Meanwhile, the European Union started to threaten Albania with a freeze of its candidate status for joining the union if a compromise was not reached.

In September, Economy Minister Dritan Prifti resigned after being involved in a corruption scandal.

On October 28 the opposition Socialist Party walked out of the Parliament again.

In November the European Union rejected Albania's request for EU candidate status keeping true to its previous warnings, but the visa regime was liberalized for Albania and Bosnia. The ongoing political crisis was one of the reasons of the refusal of granting Albania official candidate status

In 2011 the crisis kept intensifying. On January 7, the Central Election Commission of Albania begun burning the ballots of the 2009 parliamentary elections, in a routine process leading up to the May 8th local elections. This made a second count (repeatedly requested by the opposition) impossible. The Socialist Party accused the CEC and the Berisha government of attempting to hide vote manipulation.

On January 14 Economy and Trade Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Ilir Meta resigns after being involved in a corruption scandal. Meta appeared on video footage, allegedly released by former Minster of Economy and Trade Dritan Prifti. In the video Meta appeared to be pressing Prifti to grant a public tender for a hydroelectrical power plant to one of his friends.

Because of the released footage on January 21,Clashes break up between police and protesters in an anti-government rally in front of the Government building in Tirana. Three people were shot dead on the spot and another died after a week-long coma Republican Guard Shot US, Claims Albanian Journalist in the most dramatic escalation of the political crisis. The EU issued a statement to all Albanian politicians, warning both sides to refrain from violence. Both sides however engaged in mutual recriminations. Berisha declared the demonstrations had actually been part of an alleged failed coup d'état and set out looking for witnesses. The opposition meanwhile declared that the violence exercised by the government forces had been unjustifiable.

On May 8, Local elections ended with the victory of the Socialist Party of Albania (PS) in the main cities outside Tirana, Lezha and Scutari; The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe released a mixed evaluation of the electoral process, which was considered "competitive and transparent, but took place in an environment of high polarization and mistrust". In Tirana, the contest was between Edi Rama, incumbent mayor and PS leader, and Lulzim Basha, DP Minister of the Interior. After a long process of vote counting, Rama was first declared winner with a tight margin of 10 votes. Then, the DP-led Central Electoral Commission decided to add to the count some of the votes misplaced in the wrong boxes, a move on doubtful legal grounds that was contested by the opposition as well as by the OSCE. Basha was finally declared to be the winner with 83 votes. The EU Commission president José Manuel Barroso consequently cancelled his visit to Tirana;