Erion Veliaj, the Mayor of Tirana who was sworn in for a second mandate today, said he will fulfill all of the promises he has made.
His appointment comes after the Socialist Party held ‘elections’ despite the President Ilir Meta cancelling them and postponing them until October due to political unrest and mass protests over alleged election rigging. Edi Rama insisted that the ‘elections’ go ahead anyway, ignoring the presidential decree.
In a speech given during the swearing-in ceremony, Veliaj spoke of what he has done over the last four years and what benefit it has been to Tirana adding that it was a “quality city for children” despite developing over parks, playgrounds, and green spaces. He then said that he will fulfill “every promise we have made.”
During his 2015 election campaign, Veliaj promised that he would put a halt to construction permits in a so-called “moratorium” in order to”save public spaces”. Then after assuming his position, between 2016 and 2018, he issued at least 725 permits, demonstrating a poor track record of “fulfilling every promise we have made”.
This years “elections” were boycotted by around 85% of eligible voters as even Socialist Party supporters deserted in droves.
In Tirana, the Central Election Commission (KQZ) claims that 26% out of 662,837 voters cast their vote and Veliaj received only 152,347. Not only is this is loss of 8000 votes from the election that saw him become Mayor of Tirana four years ago, but as the number of eligible voters has increased by 53,951 since then, it is clear that his popularity has decreased significantly.
It came to light that many government and municipality employees were ordered to go and vote and some were told that if they did not vote, they could lose their jobs.
In Tirana, video footage surfaced of a young woman being offered 2000 lek to vote. She was given instructions and told “you have to vote” by an unidentified man.
A video was also published of the voting commissioner assisting voters in illegal activity, handwritten voter lists were observed, and voters were even filmed by TV station, completely violating their right to privacy.
In addition to this, when the results were announced around 11 jurisdictions noted a Socialist Party win by more votes than people that voted, leading many to suggest foul play. The government-controlled Election Commission then ‘recounted’ and said that most of the irregularities were just erroneous. They refused to match the poll books with the voter list, again leading many to believe that manipulation had taken place.
Klement Zguri, Head of the KQZ suggested an administrative investigation into the irregular results. Shortly after, he received death threats via social media.
The OSCE-ODHIR who observed the ‘elections’ said they were held “with little regard for the interests of the electorate” and that Albanian’s “did not have a meaningful choice”. They also stated that they had “credible allegations” of citizens being pressured.
The Socialist Party are now moving to remove President Meta from office, following his insistence that the real elections will go ahead on 13 October.
