Purging electoral administrative organs from party-affiliated members, using increased technology in elections, and the issue of the electoral system will be the last matters to be discussed by the Albanian Electoral Reform Political Committee today and tomorrow, before Electoral Reform talks are concluded within May 31.
Sources told Exit that the issue of a change in the electoral system will be discussed only nominally, as the Socialist majority and the opposition have agreed beforehand that the system will remain unchanged.
The Socialist majority will not budge on the issue of removing party-affiliated persons from electoral committees, and replacing them with neutral individuals that must apply, meet certain criteria, and be subsequently trained to assume their positions. Political parties will be allowed to have election observers, but no commissioners that will manage the election process.
The Democratic party’s non-negotiable proposal, on the other hand, consists in the introduction of technology like bio-metric identification, electronic voting, and electronic vote counting, during the next elections.
Sources told Exit that, seeing as both parties have brought their own non-negotiable conditions to the table, it is likely that an agreement will be reached on the de-politicization of electoral committees and, at the very least, bio-metric voter identification. This will be necessary to meet the conditions of both parties and, thus, conclude talks before May 31.
The Electoral Reform Political Committee will meet today at 5pm.
