[ALBSA-Info] Socialists claim victory in Albanian election

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Socialists claim victory in Albanian election

By Benet Koleka

  
TIRANA, July 8 (Reuters) - Albania's ruling Socialist Party claimed a 
landslide victory in the decisive second round of elections on Sunday which 
monitors said were generally calm, although the opposition complained of 
irregularities. 

The ruling Socialist Party of Prime Minister Ilir Meta, which won 33 of 100 
seats in the first round on June 24, announced it had won 37 more seats on 
Sunday against five for the opposition Democratic Party of ex-president Sali 
Berisha. 

A further 40 seats in the 140-seat single chamber are allocated to the 
parties in proportion to the share of the overall vote they achieve. 

Final official results are due in by Wednesday. 

The second round of the elections, the first since the country plunged into 
anarchy in 1997 after the collapse of fraudulent investment schemes, appeared 
to be a facsimile of the first round which won praise from international 
observers. 

Election observers reported no incidents of violence after polling booths 
opened to 1.2 million eligible voters in this impoverished Balkan nation. 

"The Socialist Party won 37 seats while the Democratic Party has won five in 
43 constituencies in the second round," the Socialists' secretary general 
Gramoz Ruci said. 

Ruci said the Socialists and its allies believed they would have the 85 votes 
required to elect a new president next year when incumbent Rexhep Meidani's 
five-year term ends. 

Aldrin Dalipi, a spokesman for the Central Election Commission (CEC), said 
voting had been normal although turnout, at around 48 percent, was marginally 
lower than the first round's 54 percent. 

BERISHA COMPLAINS OF IRREGULARITIES 

However Berisha, who was ousted from power in 1997 in the chaos that followed 
the collapse of the pyramid investment schemes, complained of electoral 
irregularities even before the Socialists claimed victory, triggering concern 
that he might not recognise the outcome. 

The Democrats charged during and after the voting that the Socialist 
government had used the police force to intimidate their supporters and 
manipulate the result. 

The Interior Ministry denied there had been any pressure from the police, who 
had taken extra measures to prevent trouble in a country where some half a 
million guns, looted during the 1997 uprising, still remain in private hands. 

To the relief of Albania's Western partners, the conflict in neighbouring 
Macedonia, where ethnic Albanian insurgents are battling government forces, 
and the wider concept of Greater Albania did not feature as election issues.