Albania

The International Republican Institute (IRI) has conducted democracy assistance programs in Albania since 1991, focusing on training for new parliamentarians and their staff, campaign training for newly-formed political parties, constitutional reform, and several projects aimed at supporting the development of Albania’s electoral system.

IRI monitored national elections in 1992, 1996 and 1997. After social upheaval in 1996 and 1997 set back the country’s democratic process, IRI narrowed the scope of its program, to work with the parliament and local nongovernmental organizations (NGO). IRI’s current program focuses on enfranchising persons with disabilities and engaging them in the political process. Since 2006, IRI has worked with disability NGOs within Albania to build up a program focusing on promoting the rights of the disabled and enshrining them within the political framework.

In October 2006, IRI and the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES) conducted an assessment mission to Albania to identify the needs of people with disabilities. As part of the mission, IRI met with local disability NGOs to establish program partnerships and discuss the most pressing concerns within the disability community. During the mission, IRI and IFES also worked with disability advocates to develop a broad-based agenda targeting the 2007 local elections and beyond.

Following the assessment mission, IRI assisted its local program partners and disability NGOs develop a platform as a way of bringing greater attention to disability issues during the upcoming campaign. The resulting Platform for the Disabled was unveiled at a formal launch ceremony in Tirana on December 7, 2006.

Building upon this momentum, disability advocates, with IRI support, embarked upon an awareness campaign for the 2007 local elections, using the Platform for the Disabled as a way to incorporate disability issues into the political platforms of major candidates for political office.

For the February 19, 2007, local elections, IRI’s partners organized an election observation effort in Tirana, Shkodra and Librazhd. The observation mission followed several weeks of intensive lobbying and meetings with political officials and candidates about the Platform for Disabilities both in Tirana and in the target cities.

The findings of the observation mission included: low participation of persons with disabilities in the voting process, roughly two percent of those registered voted; limited knowledge and insufficient training on the part of commission members on how to handle cases of disabled persons showing up to vote; more than half of voting centers observed lacked ramps or elevators; statistical information on registration and identification of persons with disabilities was largely missing.

Among Albanian NGOs, there is little tradition of advocacy outreach or lobbying political entities. IRI conducts advocacy training sessions to teach lobbying and advocacy skills to local NGO partners. These trainings are designed to provide concrete skills that would enable advocates successfully promote the Platform for the Disabled.

After 45 years of isolation and communist oppression, Albania emerged from the Cold War as the poorest country in Europe. Albania has since made some progress in building democracy and free markets, although it has on several occasions sunk into turmoil and instability. The state’s institutions are fragile and the political system continues to be highly polarized. Throughout the 1990s and, though less so, until today the Socialist Party and the Democratic Party have carried on a harsh struggle for power with little regard for the concerns of Albania’s citizens and with repeated breaches of democratic norms.

The defeat of communism in Albania was sealed by the 1992 electoral victory of the Democratic Party, led by Sali Berisha, over the Socialist Party. After he took office, President Berisha was quick to introduce a market economy and to pursue a firmly pro-Western foreign policy. Berisha’s government ultimately fell after the collapse of large pyramid schemes where a large portion of Albania’s population had put money and sometimes life savings. Forced to call early elections, Berisha’s Democratic Party lost to the Socialist Party which held power from1997-2005.

In 2005, the Democratic Party and its allies return to power with the pledge of fighting corruption and crime. Sali Berisha was sworn in as Prime Minister on September 2005. In the name of fighting corruption Berisha’s government has launched an aggressive campaign of administrative and legal reforms which the opposition deems unconstitutional. Despite isolated violence and other incidence that prompted criticisms by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the parliamentary elections of 2005 and the local elections of 2007 marked relative progress in the conduct of fair and free elections.

Albania’s state institutions are still weak, in large part because of past electoral disputes, contested election results, boycotts of democratic processes, but mostly because of endemic corruption. The governing party or coalition fails to treat the opposition as a fully legitimate participant in the political system. The opposition rarely works constructively within Albania’s democratic institutions to keep government excesses in check and to present credible political alternatives to the public. These setbacks, however, have not stopped the country in moving forward. Elected officials are more prone to listening to the voters and they understand the importance of reaching out to them.

Political Overview

Chief of State: President Bamir Topi

Head of Government: Prime Minister Sali Berisha

Type of Government: parliamentary democracy

Suffrage: universal, age 18

Elections Calendar

Project Overview

Focus of Program: enfranchising persons with disabilities in the political process

Funding Source: United States Agency for International Development