Constitutional Changes, Parties Failed to Reach an Agreement
After five hours meeting of the Political Council on electoral reform, one day ahead of the vote on constitutional changes in the July 30 plenary session, the Socialist Party has reportedly rejected the proposal of the United Opposition for full opening of lists without changing the formula of coalitions and the distribution of mandates.
Socialist Damian Gjiknuri, said that there was nothing new on the table to be discussed by the United Opposition, that according to him is still trying to block the voting process of the Constitutional Changes.
"Their offered no new compromise. Their request was to sabotage the process. Constitutional Changes do not obstacle open lists or creation of political coalitions. We are open to discuss with the opposition how the lists will be open and how the coalitions will be formed," said Gjiknuri.
The Democratic Party representative Oerd Bylykbashi presented the proposals on behalf of the united opposition: an amendment to allow open-list system, specifying that any other unilateral action goes against the June 5 agreement.
In its proposal, the opposition stated that Article 64, as it exists in the Constitution, presents no obstacles to adopt the mechanism of 100% open lists, and consequently should not be changed.
For the Democratic Party, the only part of the Constitution that needs to change is Article 68. As the opposition party pointed out, this article provides a rule in paragraph 1, according to which “the order of candidates for MPs in multi-name lists cannot be changed after the submission of the list to the relevant election commissionâ€.
“This sentence in the Constitution is the only obstacle to adopting a 100% open list mechanism,†it noted.
For the United Opposition, any other change would go against the June 5 agreement.
“The opposition has reconfirmed that other changes proposed by the Socialist Party affect the electoral race between political parties, six months before the date for registration in the elections and seriously affect the equality of the parties in an electoral process. They were drafted and imposed unilaterally by a single party, in order to serve the narrow political interests, six months ahead of the next elections,†the opposition stated.