The General Secretary of the Democratic Party, Gazmend Bardhi, raised a series of vote-buying allegations accusing directly the Minister of Infrastructure and Energy Belinda Balluku.
The candidate of the Socialist Party, who secured a parliamentary seat when the new legislative branch is formed, denied the accusation during an interview on Euronews Albania as “baseless” and “lacking evidence”.
According to Balluku, the accusations made by the Democrats are triggered by the state in which the DP is today, in the midst of a crisis and protests calling for the resignation of its leader Lulzim Basha.
Journalist Bruna Çifligu recalled that similar claims have also been pointed out in the preliminary report of OSCE/ODIHR but minister Balluku said that “Gazmend Bardhi and his allies have in fact sold too many votes and that the report will come out like all the other times because everybody knows who buys votes”.
The Minister of Infrastructure was among the top-voted candidates from the lines of the Socialist Party. She says that this encourages her to “work harder for citizens”.
“To be one of the most voted candidates puts me in front of great responsibility to work even harder and preserve this voting trend in the future. When citizens mark your name you are responsible for every single ballot you’ve received”, said Balluku.
She also thanked her opponents, particularly pointing out the great campaign led by Belind Këlliçi, the leader of the Democratic Party’s Youth Forum.
“I respect the candidate I was facing as he is a young man and led a good campaign, we did not have any problems”, she said.
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