In a press release the Central Election Commission (KQZ) has announced that it has received the full candidate lists of 17 parties to take part in the parliamentary elections on June 18. In 2013, 68 parties participated in the elections.
Parties who entered their candidate lists include Edi Rama’s Socialist Party (PS), President-Elect Ilir Meta’s Socialist Movement for Integration (LSI), as well as the new parties Sfida and Libra.
The KQZ will now start the verification process of the candidates following the mandate of the decriminalization law. This process will end on May 9.
In a final appeal to all parties included in the ongoing political crisis, the KQZ also announced that May 3 is the utmost deadline for any broad political compromise:
The KQZ, conscious of the political situation in which the country finds itself, but also responsible for the duty with which it charged, calls the attention of all political factors and actors that if there are still all-inclusive maneuvers to be made, from May 3, 2017, we violate not only legally but also technically the limit after which any extension of the participation is impossible.
The three opposition members of the KQZ have denounced the official declarations as “personal opinions” of KQZ Chair Denar Biba:
In a flagrant violation of the Electoral Code, through a second declaration (on April 30, 2017), the chairman of the KQZ invents new legal norms by deciding on another legal deadline for the registration of electoral subjects/candidate lists, on May 3, where it is known that this deadline has passed more than 20 days ago.
