However, the concentration of tenders awarded to businesses owned by politically exposed individuals remains alarmingly high. These tenders are often used as a source of funding for election campaigns or electoral misconduct.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The media has documented such cases in Tirana[ii]<\/a>, Berat, Kolonja and Fier[iii]<\/a>, as recently as April 2025. \ud83d\udea9\ud83d\udea9\ud83d\udea9\ud83d\udea9<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n AIS (local NGO), through the Open Procurement Albania[iv]<\/a> program, has found that 45% of tenders in period January till April 2025 were flagged as red-flag tenders (no competition), compared to total tenders. \ud83d\udea9\ud83d\udea9\ud83d\udea9\ud83d\udea9<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Furthermore, according to the annual report from the Public Procurement Agency, in 2024 a year leading up to the election period, the total value of tenders announced reached 14% of GDP. This is the first time (year) this fund has reached such a high level (with 7-9% being the average) indicates a significant injection of public funds just before the election campaigns.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n A similar trend was also observed in 2020, prior to the 2021 elections.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n This document presents a series of concerns related to the integrity of the electoral process and the right to vote in the context of May 11th<\/sup>, 2025, Parliamentary Elections, as identified by AIS.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The observations stem from AIS\u2019s long-term monitoring of public expenditures and procurement through our three watchdog\u00a0and data disclosing platforms<\/em><\/strong>:\u00a0Open Procurement Albania<\/a>;\u00a0Open Spending Albania<\/a>;\u00a0Open Corporates Albania<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n During the 2017 elections, AIS implemented the\u00a0ICT for Fair Elections<\/em>\u00a0project, which tracked and mapped electoral violations based on citizen reports. Unfortunately, this initiative is not active for the 2025 elections due to a lack of funding (Raise Voice Albania \u2013 Make Elections Count\u00a0<\/em>Za\u2019Lart 2017<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n This report also draws on\u00a0journalistic investigations and media content<\/strong>, particularly from journalists specializing in anti-corruption issues. AIS maintains strong partnerships with investigative journalists, supporting and empowering them through access to well-structured and Open DataBases.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n #ElectoralSpendingAlbania #SpendingDataAlbania #OpenProcurementAlbania #OpenCorporatesAlbania #ElectionAlbania2025 #AssetDeclaration<\/b><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n [i]<\/a> see p. 34: SPAK Report: https:\/\/spak.gov.al\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Raporti-2023.pdf<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n [ii]<\/a> Zgjedhjet jan\u00eb \u201cflori\u201d p\u00ebr Qefaliajt, n\u00eb nj\u00eb muaj, 1.8 mln euro tendera nga Bashkia Tiran\u00eb<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n [iii]<\/a> PLUG zbardh skem\u00ebn \u20185K\u2019, t\u00eb ish-kryebashkiak – Syri | Lajmi i fundit<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n [iv]<\/a> Open Procurement Albania<\/a><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Over the past three years, a consistent pattern of flagged tenders has emerged, with businesses associated with or owned by politically exposed persons (PEPs) or individuals with conflicts of interest securing awarding contracts \ud83d\udea9 These arguments have been officially documented in the 2023 Annual Report of the Special Anti-Corruption and Organized Crime Prosecution Office (SPAK), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":573553,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-573521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-releases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ais.al\/new\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ais.al\/new\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ais.al\/new\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ais.al\/new\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ais.al\/new\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573521"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ais.al\/new\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":573552,"href":"https:\/\/ais.al\/new\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573521\/revisions\/573552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ais.al\/new\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ais.al\/new\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ais.al\/new\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ais.al\/new\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ndiqparate.al\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Screenshot-2023-12-19-110039-1.png\")
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