In a press statement, Central Election Commission (KQZ) chair Klement Zguri has announced that the deadline for contesting the final election results has passed.
According to the statement, the PDIU and PS have contested the results in the County of Tirana, and the PD the result in the County of Berat.
The PDIU claims that in 65% of the ballot boxes whose counting procedure they have reviewed, 50 votes were not counted for the PDIU. According to the official results in Tirana, PDIU won 12,347 votes or 2.98% of the votes, 0.02% below the electoral threshold of 3%. Through his complaint, PDIU Shpëtim Idrizi hopes to reach the 3% threshold and win a fourth seat for his party.
The PD has contested the results in Berat, in particular the vote counts in two ballot boxes, which lacked proper documentation and who final vote counts didn’t match up. Even if these ballot boxes are excluded from the final results, the distribution of the mandates in Berat is not expected to change in the PD’s favor.
It also appears that new political party LIBRA has missed the KQZ’s deadline, and will not be able to contest the result in Tirana County. According to LIBRA leader Ben Blushi, 18 votes for LIBRA from two different ballot boxes have not been counted as such or have been assigned to other parties. Blushi in particular blames a Vote Counting Group member from the PS, Ergys Hila, for “stealing” the LIBRA votes. LIBRA’s complaint will however not be discussed by the KQZ.
