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OPINEWS

New report, old refrain

Politiko 2025-05-12 21:18:59

New report, old refrain

By Lutfi Dervishi

The afternoon conference of international observers once again highlighted not only standards, but also stereotypes, which instead of describing reality, often simplify it into clichés.

Such was the complaint about the low turnout in the elections. For the ODIHR observer, the turnout of 42% seems worrying, but no one has explained to him that the real number of voters in Albania, in relation to the current population, exceeds 80%. So, it is not that Albanians do not vote, but that the voter list is inflated with those who have emigrated and cannot vote.

Then comes the cliché about the media. The report states that “self-censorship is a problem,” but the ODIHR observer is surprised when confronted with critical journalists who ask tough and direct questions. In reality, the problem is not that there are no good journalists, but that the media system is another matter.

When the ODIHR report notes the lack of debates in the campaign, it forgets to mention that Albania has not held debates for decades and journalists do not report on the campaigns.

 Debates have been replaced with live or recorded broadcasts. The campaign is reported by the parties and journalists are spectators at best or fabrication workers working with material from the client.

Journalists today noted with concern the deteriorating role of the police during the elections, but the response they received from observers was unexpected: "We are not police." An epic moment that shows how far the observation is from the reality on the ground.

And the icing on the cake: the problem is not only the use of public administration for electoral purposes, government financial decisions for electoral favors, voter intimidation, or vote buying.

All of this is old. The problem is that the report fails to say whether these phenomena have improved or worsened since the last elections.

Instead, the list of recommendations is repeated every four years, without any serious attempt to measure progress or regression.

The ODIHR recommendations are not short, but repetitive. Perhaps it is time to have just one recommendation: address the old list of recommendations.

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