Can Albania Exorcise the Ghost of Elections Past? The Milestone April 2021 Elections Ioannis Armakolas and Bledar Feta April 2021 Policy Paper #67/2021 Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung April 2021 2 Introduction On April 25th, 2021, Albania will hold its tenth multi-party parliamentary What is at stake in the April 25th elections elections since the fall of Communism.1 In a tense political atmosphere and ● Successful completion of the electoral process amidst mutual recriminations by the leaders of the main political parties, will offer an opportunity to move beyond the the Albanian citizens will be asked to decide on granting a third mandate usual zero-sum-game of Albanian political to the ruling Socialist Party (PS) or voting for a rotation, opening the way parties. for a handover of power to the Democratic Party (PD). These elections are ● Cross-party acceptance of the election results deemed crucial for the country’s future, with the international community will increase political stability and improve being consistent in its message for the absolute significance of a successful Albania’s democratic credentials. completion of the electoral process. ● The creation of a stable government and the adoption of real opposition politics would Post-Communist politics in Albania are characterised by a paradox. Its push consensual reforms, thus renewing two-party dominated system has shown remarkable stability. Albania is the momentum in Albania’s bid for EU membership. one of the very few countries in the Balkans (possibly with the addition of North Macedonia and Croatia) where the two dominant party pillars of ● Political and social stability will create the system have remained intact in the last thirty years. Only in the last conditions for attracting new investments, necessary for maintaining growth and for decade or so a third party (the Socialist Movement for Integration-LSI) dealing with the negative effects of the has managed to become the ‘kingmaker’ in an evolving two and a half COVID-19 pandemic and the challenge of party system. With very few exceptions, the rest of the parties in post- vaccination. Communist Albania can be considered as ‘satellites’ of the two main party The violation of the voting rules could put in pillars.2 Still, and here lies the paradox, the political system is anything question the legitimacy of the elections and the but stable, since election results are often contested, while the country’s acceptance of the electoral results by all parties, leading to political crisis and a dysfunctional politics suffer from virtually all the classic deficiencies of post-Communist parliament. Albania’s democratic credentials polities: “political conflict, a high level of party factionalisation, weak will suffer a new severe blow and the country’s internal party democracy, dysfunctional parliamentary life, electoral and EU accession process a serious setback. parliamentary boycotts, and continuously changing rules of the game”.3 The picture becomes even more complicated if we add to the equation the serious deficiencies in policy making, corruption and state capture, economic malaise as well as the clientelist practices that tend to distort elections.4 Returning to the elections, in more than three decades as a democratic polity, Albania has repeatedly had problems in the organization of fully free and fair elections. As this key national priority is held back by the long-term political deadlocks, the behavior of both the Albanian electorate and political class in these elections will constitute a determinant factor towards the country’s democratic future. It is time for Albanians to take personal responsibility and think as voters not as party militants, rationalizing the faults of those who have governed them in the last three decades. However, the ball is not only in the voters’ court. The Albanian political class surely bears the major political responsibility. The ideal development would be the total transformation of their political behavior, eliminating the legacy of inflammatory politics of the past. 1 The authors would like to thank Ornela Sollaku for her research assistance. 2 Arba Murati, “Albania”, Sten Berglund, Joakim Ekman, Kevin Deegan-Krause and Terje Knutsen, eds., The Handbook of Political Change in Eastern Europe, 3rd edition, Edward Elgar Publishing. 3 Ibid. p.651. 4 Gentiana Kera and Armanda Hysa, “Influencing votes, winning elections: clientelist practices and private funding of electoral campaigns in Albania”, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 2020, Vol. 1, no.1, pp. 123-139, p. 135. Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung April 2021 3 To move forward, Albanian politicians need to acknowledge the costs of fixating on narrow party and personal interests, show strategic clarity, transparency, and political will for the adoption of consensual reforms, and above all need to take actions that will increase public confidence in the integrity of the electoral process as a necessary step for burying the ghost of the elections past. Albania is in desperate need of a break from the past and does not have the luxury to lose yet another opportunity, its 10th since the end of Communism. Three Decades of Disputed Elections Albania has been plagued with disputed elections for the past three decades. This is the result of a power struggle between the major political parties to take full control of the electoral administration process.5 The phenomenon is also linked to political calculations of elites as well as the political culture in the wider society. On the one hand, the non-acceptance of electoral results is the excuse of political leadership to stay on despite electoral setbacks; the result is a very low rate of political elite circulation, which leads to certain political personnel’s continued presence in the political life virtually for decades. On the other, the phenomenon of disputed elections is also linked to a widespread societal culture of non- acceptance of or shame over defeat. At the heart of the problem is the adoption of several electoral legal provisions, some of which noticeably unconstitutional, in order to secure the dominance of one or the other party in all processes. Possibly no other European country has experienced the kind of extreme electoral patterns seen in Albania in the past 31 years; however, this wave of changes in the country’s electoral codes is not the result of a healthy political dialogue oriented towards a stable and fair electoral system. In fact, it is the result of political bargaining and compromises between the Socialist and the Democratic Party, a process which has benefited the two parties’ interests to the detriment of genuine democracy in Albania. The domination of the process by one party leads to the contestation of the electoral results by the other. Potential controversies arising after the elections are leading to internal political instability and to dysfunctional parliaments putting at risk the adoption of necessary reforms. As a result, Albania is caught in a ‘vicious circle’ where political elites have created a system that ensures their dominance in the electoral process and facilitates their survival and perpetuation from one electoral cycle to the other, always at the expense of Albania’s democracy and the prosperity of its citizens. 5 Albanian Elections Observatory Brief No. 2 “Electoral Administration Process in Albania”, South East Europe Program, Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), May 2013. Available at: http://www.eliamep.gr/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/bnal.pdf [last accessed on 17 April 2021]. Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung April 2021 4 1 Political parties express their political will for total electoral reform with the declared aim to ensure free and fair elections. 4 The outcome does not 2 secure the protection Political consultations The ‘Vicious of the electoral rules or This climate of mutual and dialogue take place Circle” of the build genuine political suspicion leads to the but never result in a consensus. Elections contestation of the political parties con- Albanian Electoral are held in a climate of electoral results. sensus. Politics mutual animosity and suspicion. 3 Political bargaining and the pursuit of party Chronology of Contested advantage predominates; Elections in Albania as a result, the party in power tends to have Year Parliamentary the upper hand in the Elections process. 1991 (X) Disputed 1992 (✓) Accepted 1996 (X) Disputed 1997 (X) Disputed 2001 (X) Disputed The Albanian electoral processes frequently generate 2005 (✓) Accepted new political confrontations which raise political tensions and complicate enormously any effort for reaching 2009 (X) Disputed political consensus. 2013 (✓) Accepted 2017 (X) Disputed Elections against the backdrop of mistrust among political forces The last parliamentary elections held in 2017 did not manage to avoid this troubling trend. Allegations of electoral fraud and irregularities as well as mutual recriminations between the ruling Socialist Party and the opposition forces marked the elections and fed into political polarisation that continued over the next four years. The high point of the crisis was arguably the broadcasting of wiretaps that alleged the involvement of senior officials of the Socialist Party and organized crime groups in vote- Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung April 2021 5 buying during the 2017 elections.6 Fuelled by other conflictual issues, the Consensual changes of the electoral law opposition decided to escalate their confrontation with the government