Parliamentary elections held on May 26th, 1996 in Albania and the political crises they caused

Abstract

Parliamentary elections of May 26th, 1996 in Albania were held in a deeply polarized political environment; they were associated with multiple tensions during the pre-election period, the Election Day and post-election period as well. The voting process and the results of the elections were opposed by the oppositions and criticized by the international institutions. Election processes in post-communist Albania have been associated continuously with multiple legal, procedural, administrating problems, but May 26th elections, as never seen before, were declared publicly and decisively as against election standards, Government’s responsibilities and political interventions in the process as stated by the international observers. According to them, 32 out of 79 election law’s articles were violated. The elections qualified as “a step backwards to the democratization process”, deepened the political crisis in Albania and ignored major problems already prevailing in Albania. This paper attempts to describe, analyze and evaluate the parliamentary elections held in May 26th, 1996 as seen from a legal, procedural and political point of view and their effects on political crisis in Albania. To reach this objective, the present descriptive - analytical paper was prepared through researching, synthetizing and analyzing efforts and based on documents and reports of Albanian and international institutions, studies conducted by Albanian and foreign scholars, testimonials and interviews of the protagonists, etc.