EU urges Albanian leaders to improve election standards

(BRUSSELS) - EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn urged Albanian leaders Monday to work to bring election standards up to international norms, after observers reported some violations in weekend polls.

"I take note of the (OSCE observers) preliminary conclusions stating that tangible progress has been made in some areas," Rehn said in a statement.

"However, these improvements were overshadowed by the politicisation of technical aspects of the election process as well as by violence during the election campaign," he said.

Rehn said the polls "clearly underline the need for the Albanian political leadership, across the party lines, to work hard in order to conduct elections in the future which fully meet international standards and have high public confidence of the Albanian voters."

The ruling Democratic Party of Prime Minister Sali Berisha, which held a narrow lead according to exit polls from Sunday's election, hailed the vote as "free and fair," while authorities said it passed smoothly.

But the Socialist Party of Berisha's main rival, Tirana Mayor Edi Rama, intends to file complaints of irregularities in the seventh election since the collapse of Albania's communist regime in the early 1990s.

The complaints were partly backed by election observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which said there were improvements but still reported violations.

Before the voting took place Brussels had indicated that any progress towards EU membership for Albania, one of Europe's poorest nations where Muslims make up around 70 percent of its 3.6 million population, depended on it holding free, fair and peaceful elections.