<\/p>\n
Tirana, 15 December 2015<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The Election Situation Room has asked the Assembly of Albania not to change the original draft law on local government, which restricted the time in office of locally elected officials to 2 mandates.<\/p>\n The latest decision to increase the number of mandates to 3 is considered a regress by the Election Room. According to the representatives of this Room, this decision is a move backward, because all the mayors, who had won a third mandate, were actually criminally prosecuted for abusing their power.<\/p>\n Gerti Shella (INFOCIP)<\/span>:<\/strong> The Albanian experience with the local government dictates today more than ever the need to restrict the mandates of locally elected officials to two. At the beginning of this year only, the mayors of the most important cities, who had already two mandates each, and ran for a third one, were criminally prosecuted for misuse of duty and corruption. Those prosecuted included also tens of commune mayors.<\/em><\/p>\n Aranita Brahaj (AIS and <\/em>Za\u2019Lart<\/a><\/span><\/strong> Albania 2015<\/em>): The observation of election situations in the 2015 local government elections showed that where the existing mayors reran in these elections, there were higher expenses and more cases of misused of the public administration for purposes of electoral campaign. The <\/em>Za\u2019Lart<\/a><\/strong><\/span> platform received reports from citizens about problems with the transfer of voters\u2019 names on the civil register. In municipalities, where existing mayors reran, there were also cases of pressure being exercised to intimidate voters through public services, violating thus the principles of fair competition among the candidates. Therefore, the law should not tolerate the use of power for such a long time.<\/em><\/p>\n Kristaq Kume<\/span>:\u00a0<\/strong>We are going to use such restrictive mechanisms such as the restriction of the right to be elected to no more than two mandates\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The changing of the original local government draft law is, according to the Election situation Room, against the recommendations made by the international bodies, as well as against the consultation process with the interest groups.<\/p>\n