The vote-counting process for ballots arriving from Greece continues to be contested by the opposition. Opposition commissioners have refused to count these ballots, challenging their legitimacy.

A decision by State Election Commissioner Ilirjan Celibashi had initially unblocked the diaspora vote-counting process at the Olympic Park, allowing the ballots from Greek-based emigrants to be separated into a new box. However, following that decision, the process now risks another deadlock.

The Socialist Party immediately appealed Celibashi’s decision, requesting it be annulled as “absolutely invalid and issued in violation of the law.”

The Electoral Complaints and Sanctions Commission (KAS) later announced it had accepted the Socialist Party’s complaint, declaring the commissioner’s decision “absolutely null.”

At a press conference, Marash Logu, legal representative of the opposition coalition “Alliance for a Great Albania,” argued that Celibashi’s decision failed to address their core complaints about the handling of ballots from Greece. Instead, he said, it merely allowed the counting process to resume, with disputed ballots to be reviewed at a later stage.

Logu claimed the opposition had evidence that the delivery of envelopes from Greece violated contractual agreements with the courier company DHL, and that voter identification procedures were not followed as required by law.

“There are two facts we know: First, there was a blatant violation of the contract that DHL had signed with the Central Election Commission. DHL did not personally manage the distribution and collection of election envelopes from Greece but subcontracted the process—despite the contract clearly stating that subcontracting is not allowed. The entire procedure began with a flagrant contractual breach by the courier service.

Second, between April 17 and May 4, we had received only 17,000 envelopes from Greece. Then on May 4, Prime Minister Rama declared in Gjirokastër that the distribution process in Greece was a ‘mish-mash.’ That same day, PS political coordinators reportedly traveled to Greece, to specific DHL centers, to unlawfully collect the envelopes intended for Albanian voters, fill them in, and send them to Albania.

From May 5 to May 11, we saw 36,000 envelopes arrive from Greece in just six days. From 1,000 envelopes per day, it suddenly jumped to 6,000 per day. In our view, this anomaly is nothing short of voter manipulation targeting Albanian citizens in Greece,” Logu stated.