Albania’s local elections will be held sometime between April 15 and May 15, next year.

Less than a year from these elections, the State Commissioner for the Elections Ilirjan Celibashi, reminded political parties of the OSCE/ODIHR recommendations.

After April 25, OSCE presented us with a set of 23 recommendations to improve our electoral process, from the beginning of the electoral campaign all the way to the counting process.

The first recommendation asks that we review the Electoral Code in order to address all the concerns identified by the Venice Commission.

Recommendations no. 17 and 14 also list a set of obligations needed to be met by our political subjects. In a nutshell, they ask for more auditing for the party’s finances when it comes to their campaign funding, while also lifting the ban for individuals who wish to run as candidates who haven’t been convicted by our system.

In addition, recommendations no. 20 and 5 ask that we make several changes in regards to the role played by the media during the electoral campaigns.

At the beginning of February, DP’s Parliamentary Group spoke about the changes that needed to be made to the territorial and electoral reforms, but it’s still uncertain whether or not the Democratic Party will continue on this path seeing that many internal issues remain unresolved.

Commission Celibashi asked that all parties begin their work and preparations but so far, there still hasn’t been any sign from Parliament in regards to fulfilling the OSCE recommendations on amending the Electoral Code.