Electoral silence respected ahead of the elections

TIRANA, June 22 – After an intensive electoral campaign for Sunday’s parliamentary elections, Albanian voters received a 24-hour reprieve from partisan messages and adverts that have dominated media outlets for the past month.
Saturday is set as a day of campaign silence by the country’s election law. Article no. 77 prohibits any political messages or electoral activity a day before the vote.
Campaigning for the election started much earlier than the 30-day period set by the electoral code, but it appears all political parties and media respected Saturday’s electoral silence.
President Bujar Nishani warned voters to remember the country’s “ties to the world” during parliamentary elections considered a crucial test of the impoverished nation’s ability to hold fair elections.
Nishani urged voters to have “Albania and its future” uppermost in their minds.
“(We) should properly consider the importance tomorrow’s vote has for our ties with the world, with which our freedom, prosperity, fate of the present and the future are closely linked.”
As required by law, political parties ceased their one-month campaign the day before the vote. Though the month-long election contest has been relatively calm נunlike past elections that were frequently marred by violence נthe West was concerned that the vote won’t be fair.
The campaign season has been marked by a continuing dispute over the country’s election commission after the ruling Democrats replaced a member and the opposition pulled its members out in response. That means the commission won’t be able to certify election results, potentially leaving the outcome of the vote in doubt.
Some 3.3 million eligible voters were to vote among more than 6,900 candidates from 66 political parties who run for 140 parliamentary seats. Some 300 international observers and more than 8,000 local ones were to monitor the polls.