Balluku blames the fatigue of the counters for the misappropriation of hundreds of votes in Fier

The recount of votes in the Fier district revealed hundreds of stolen votes and produced a change in the result within the open list of the Socialist Party, where Zegjine Çaushi lost her parliamentary seat to another socialist candidate, Maldrita Bardho.

But the government's number 2, Belinda Balluku, who is also the political leader of the Fier region, considers this as "the product of human error and fatigue."

“It is understandable that there was fatigue and, as a result, human error,” Balluku told BIRN through a spokesperson, adding that the counters had been working for seven days in a row. She also insisted that there had been no vote distortion, emphasizing that the results of political parties had not changed.

"Distortion of the will of the voters, in my understanding, means influencing the change of the result... The fact that political entities, even after the recount, fully maintained their ranking and the plus or minus votes were minimal, shows that the counters of all forces have done a responsible and most important job," said Balluku.

The main beneficiary of the stolen votes turned out to be the Deputy Minister of Balluk, Ceno Klosi, who at the end of the recount process had 813 more votes than in the box.

Referring to this case, Balluku insisted that the large vote difference was related to the large number of votes that Klosi had received.

"The changes in the recount have not affected the ranking of candidates and the margin of error is obviously relative to the number of votes," she said.

Deputy Prime Minister Balluku also minimized the difference in the result between the two candidates Çaushi and Bardho, saying that the decision on how to proceed was in the hands of the latter.

"The case of the 10-vote difference between Maldrita Bardho and Zegjine Caushi will certainly be an issue that will remain at the full discretion of the candidates to proceed further," she said, adding that the recount proved the victory of the Socialist Party.

The reopening of ballot boxes for the May 11 parliamentary elections in the Fier region, which closed on Wednesday, revealed vote manipulation within the open lists of electoral subjects, with hundreds of votes going in favor of certain candidates of the Socialist Party and the coalition led by the Democratic Party.

Almost half of Klos' excess votes were diverted to the other socialist candidate, Klevis Jahjaj. On the other hand, the democratic candidate Silvana Hasaj was found to have received nearly 700 extra votes unfairly, while the other candidates on the joint list of the "Alliance for a Greater Albania" coalition recovered dozens of votes that were not recognized during the counting process.

Civil society organizations monitoring the electoral process consider the results of the recount in Fier as a distortion of the will of voters at the political behest of parties and are demanding a criminal investigation.

“The Fier recount should be accompanied by a criminal investigation into the problematic CEAZs, to bring to justice the party vote traffickers, who have essentially distorted the will of the citizens, as in this case we are not dealing with a human error, but with a political order,” said Rigels Xhemollari, head of the “Citizen Center”./ BIRN