The State Election Commissioner, Ilirjan Celibashi from the Parliament admitted the failure of this institution to enable the right of immigrants to vote in the elections of April 25, 2021.

He stated that 5000 Albanian citizens with the right to vote were registered, who also declared their residences in the respective states, but without having the opportunity to vote.

According to him, the time that was available, considering the changes in the Electoral Code, was insufficient but there was also a lack of political consensus between the parties.

"It is true that the Electoral Code has provisions regarding the right of immigrants to vote where they live. The next set of rules would have to be approved by the CEC (Central Election Commission) and the time was too short to prepare this set of rules. It was simply a matter of time and there was no political consensus. I cannot say more than the decisions that the CEC has said about the complaints of the election process. From a legal point of view, it is considered closed. I think it would not even have any discussion value. We have registered about 5 thousand citizens with the right to vote who have declared their residence abroad," said Celibashi.

He also presented to the Parliament, the work report of the CEC during 2020, where the results of the local elections of the previous year were mostly evidenced. Celibashi said that during 2020, there are 38 candidates from different electoral subjects who have not submitted self-declaration forms, of which the CEC has administered only the results of 4 cases.

"During 2020, the activity of the CEC has been intensive, we divide it into two periods, from January to October 2020 and from October to December 31, 2020. From January to October 2020, this activity consists in addressing the electoral aspects of the 2019 elections.

Regarding the process of decriminalization, there are 13 CEC decisions taken regarding the verification of the compliance of the election of the Municipal Councils. It has approved 83 self-declaration forms for the replacement of vacancies in the Municipal Councils. It has completed the verification for 72 candidates for which 39 are men and 33 women. During 2020, about 38 candidates of subjects have refused to submit the self-declaration form. Regarding the results of the verifications of the General Prosecutor's Office for 2020, the CEC has administered the results only for 4 cases.

Out of 128 registered political parties, only 26 political parties have submitted annual financial reports to the CEC. The CEC appointed 34 election auditors for these elections. Experts submitted weekly reports. They filed 35 election campaign monitoring reports. At the end of this process there are only 14 parties that have submitted within the deadline and 9 parties outside the legal deadline.

In connection with the activity for October to December, it consists of the preparations for the elections of April 25. Numerous changes to the Electoral Code dictated multiple tasks. It is worth mentioning that the activity of the CEC during this period was characterized by full transparency. The new CEC bodies adopted 54 bylaws, 40 decisions and an instruction. The Regulatory Commission adopted 13 bylaws, 11 decisions and 2 instructions, of which are acts related to the use of technology. The main focus was the CEC's commitment to carry out biometric identification. In the end, the CEC fulfilled all the obligations of the Electoral Code "- said Celibashi.