The Venice Commission will give its final opinion on the 30 June local elections in October of this year.
This is according to the schedule published on the website of the Commission. The matter was referred to them in 2019. The local elections took place five months after the opposition parties resigned their mandates from parliament. They took this decision following the leak of prosecution wiretaps which suggested that vote-buying and rigging had taken place in two elections, involving senior members and officials of the Socialist Party.
This gave the PS a majority in parliament and there was no opposition to contest laws or changes in policy. Furthermore, the opposition refused to take part in the local elections, leading the PS to sweep to victory in all but one municipality. Despite voter turnout being at one of the lowest rates ever, the PS took almost every municipality in the country due to lack of any opposition.
In July, the Constitutional Court addressed the Venice Commission on the issue of the constitutionality of the elections. The questions they asked included whether or not they have the power to review the constitutionality of the electoral process, whether the constitutional principle prevails over the periodicity of elections, and whether the voters’ right to vote had been violated.
The case before the Constitutional Court was brought by the Association of Municipalities, chaired by Mayor of Shkodra Voltana Ademi.
The elections were heavily criticized both locally and internationally due to the fact that voters had no meaningful choice.
