15.07.2021 – 21:26
The meeting of the DP presidency lasted over 2 hours and was accompanied by debates, but it was decided to approve the analysis document for the April 25 elections.
The Presidency decided to approve the changes for the PD statute, proposed by the chairman Lulzim Basha. Another point that was approved at today’s meeting is related to the list of candidates for the National Council of the Democratic Party that will be presented to the National Assembly on Saturday.
At the meeting of the DP leadership that started at 18:00 in the blue headquarters, there were debates between the political leaders with the Secretary General Gazment Bardhi on how to draft the document for the analysis of the April 25 elections.
According to political leaders, the document drafted by the DP number two does not reflect their election analysis reports in each district. Sources from the meeting suggest that Vice Presidents Spaho and Paloka have stated that the report is not realistic. While Spaho says that he has reached the target in the Korça region after winning 5 mandates.
The political leaders of the counties have cast doubt in the meeting that all has been done so that some come out well and some come out badly from the analysis.
Shortly before the meeting, Top Channel provided the full report with the conclusions from the analysis of the April 25 elections that would be presented to the Presidency:
1. To influence the outcome of the elections, the Government engaged in a massive operation and systematic large-scale vote-buying scheme, in cooperation with drug cartels and the most dangerous organized crime gangs, which in many cases were received protection by the State Police.
2. The Socialist Party put some representatives of organized crime on its lists for deputies.
3. A bigger concern than vote buying was the misuse of state administration resources, and the removal of the border between the party and the state, where the following data are evidenced:
Using the personal data of Albanian citizens, as a form of exerting pressure on citizens and providing state favors for the needs they may have. The media publish the information used by the SP with the personal data of 910,000 citizens, only for the Tirana region;
Payment of 125 million euros of public funds during the election campaign for thousands of families affected by the 2019 earthquake, where a significant part of them were payments received fictitiously;
Granting large public concessions worth hundreds of millions of euros;
Expenditure of about 120 million euros by the local government completely controlled by the Socialist Party for public works during the election campaign;
Increase of salaries in the electoral year for the public sector in a fund of about 63 million euros;
Temporary employment of about 13,000 new state employees;
Early disbursement of the 2.5 million euro economic assistance fund and the addition of 20,000 families to the economic assistance program during the campaign period;
Structured legalization in exchange for the vote of more than 10,000 informally built dwellings;
Massive vote-buying operation, structured in cooperation with criminal groups and their protection by the State Police;
The sudden and unprecedented closure of the borders with Greece and Northern Macedonia, to prevent the large Albanian diaspora and the Greek minority living mainly in Greece from coming to the polls.
Record high level of public procurement of 505 million euros in the months November – December 2020 for a total of 878 public contracts and procurements, compared to an annual average of 116 million for the same periods, in the last 5 years. This disproportionately higher figure reflects the abuse of public resources by the Socialist government for electoral gain just 4 months before the April 2021 elections.
Contrary to the Electoral Code and bylaws adopted by the CEC, which explicitly prohibited the granting of concessions or public favors in the period 4 months before the elections, the Government continued to grant concessions worth hundreds of millions of euros, including but not limited to the Airport contract. Tirana International, procurement for the Port of Vlora and the Port of Durres, the contract for the tracking of hydrocarbons and much more.
The government allocated and paid the financial benefits to the newborns for the entire 4-year period that were not paid in violation of the relevant bylaws.
Investigations revealed how the number of residents in a neighborhood of Tirana increased from 8,000 to 22,000 from November 2020 to March 5, 2021. In some cases, forged housing lease contracts were used in order to fictitiously increase the number of socialist voters in the Tirana district.
4. None of the electoral crimes have been punished, including those that took place during the 2016, 2017 and / or 2019 elections, which continue to nurture a widespread sense of impunity for election-related crimes, thus fostering their massive spread in in 2021.
5. The Socialist majority unilaterally amended the Constitution and violated the June 5 Agreement reached in the framework of the Political Council, creating unfair electoral advantages for the Socialist Party, due to the change in the formula of competition in coalitions, reduced the weight of political parties. opposition coalition, or created the conditions to come up with separate lists of parties within the opposition coalition. Unilateral electoral, structural and unfair changes to the SP-targeted system are one of the factors that led to an unfair 11-seat advantage in favor of the Socialist Party, despite a minimal electoral difference between the opposition coalition and the Socialist Party totaling only 38,409. vote. If the formula for distributing mandates and building a coalition had not been changed, with this result provided by these conditions of competition, the SP would have had 4 mandates less, and specifically in Berat, Durres, Gjirokastra and Vlora.
6. The ruling majority also controlled the CEC decision-making process, interfering politically in changing the appearance of the agreed ballot papers at the last minute, causing confusion among voters. This resulted in a drastic increase in the number of invalid ballots, reaching a record high of 83,000 votes, or 5% of the total votes, the highest ever in Albanian electoral history. In practical terms, the invalid ballots 83,019 have affected the result of the opposition and the benefit from the PS-PSD for at least 4 more terms, for only 4,254 votes in total (in Berat, Durrës, Korçë, and Shkodër).
7. Just a few days before the elections, the government decided to close the border with Greece and Northern Macedonia under the pretext of COVID-19, thus making the vote of Albanian emigrants impossible. This was reflected in the low turnout in Korça, Vlora and Gjirokastra.
8. In all the Reports of the 12 regions are given complete evidences, with concrete and detailed cases, how the result of the elections in the region has been massively influenced by the four main elements of the electoral massacre, which are:
Mass vote buying, mainly in rural areas and urban slums;
Involvement of criminal groups in the campaign with a clear mission, implementation of the structured vote buying scheme, collection of identity cards to prevent the voting of opposition supporters, as well as intimidation and rape of opposition supporters;
Massive misuse of human and financial resources of the state, in favor of the ruling party, including pressure on public administration, pressure through state offices on businesses and persons receiving economic assistance, creation of state favors in exchange for votes, etc .;
Abuse of the authority of the State Police in favor of the ruling party, by not creating equal conditions of competition, as well as the prevention and crackdown on electoral crimes.
9. In terms of the election result, the Democratic Party managed to secure 59 seats out of a total of 140 seats, or 42% of the total seats. Compared to the elections of 2017, where the DP won 43 seats, it turns out that the number of seats won has increased by 16 seats, so there is a 37% increase in the number of seats won. PD managed to secure 622,265 valid (39.43%), with an increase of 36% compared to 2017 where it received only 456,481 votes (28.85%). Specifically, the Democratic Party in 2021 received 165,784 valid votes more than in 2017.
10. From the analysis of the election result data it results that:
The regions of Dibër, Elbasan and Kukës have reached the maximum projection in the mandates.
The regions of Berat, Fier, Korça, Lezha and Vlora have reached the minimum projection in terms of mandates, being within expectations.
It has not reached the minimum projection in mandates and consequently the projection in mandates for the regions of Durrës, Gjirokastër, Shkodër and Tirana is considered unrealized.
11. The result of the Democratic Party list in the 2021 elections (39.4%) is comparable only to the result of the Democratic Party list in the 2009 elections (40.2%), with a difference of only – 0.8%. In this sense, in order to evaluate the performance of each region, the result of the PD list in the 2021 elections should be compared with that of 2009 (in% or mandates), which shows that:
The districts of 1. Berat, 2. Dibër, 3. Elbasan, 4. Fier, 5. Kukës, 6. Korçë, 7. Lezhë and 8. Vlorë had performances within the expectation of the historical results of the Democratic Party.
b. They had a lower performance and not within the expectation of the historical results of the Democratic Party, counties 1. Durrës, 2. Gjirokastër, 3. Shkodër, and 4. Tirana.
12. The change of the coalition formula, from the lists composed to joint lists, reduced the strength of the opposition coalition, because the number of candidates participating in the elections was the same as if the DP had competed without a coalition. In many constituencies, allied parties remained unrepresented on the Democratic Party list because the CEC did not allow, in violation of the law, the registration of more than 154 candidates in total. So unlike the coalition formula applied in the 2009 and 2013 elections, where each party participating in the coalition had a list of no less than 140 candidates, in these elections the coalition parties had a total of only 23 candidates in all constituencies. This led, as expected, that the performance of the coalition as a whole was not the same or similar to the weight and strength that such a coalition would have in 2009 or 2013, or without changing the rules in such a way. unilaterally by the Government.
13. In the conditions of the electoral massacre, the work should be focused on the regions where there are real opportunities for additional mandates in the regions of Berat, Durrës, Fier, Gjirokastër, Shkodër, Tirana and Vlora. Consequently, the whole ongoing strategy to crack down on electoral crimes and illegal phenomena that have affected the outcome, should focus mainly on these 7 districts. Meanwhile, in the regions of Elbasan, Korça and Lezha, the work should be focused, not only on maintaining the current mandates, but also on the potential to increase the mandates.
