After the electoral upset of 2023, when the Socialists with Benet Beci as their candidate won the Shkodra Municipality for the first time, the region seems to have become one of the electoral battlegrounds for the May 11 parliamentary elections.
To secure the majority of the 11 deputies coming from this area – once dominated by the Democratic Party – the parties are investing in collecting votes from the diaspora, which has been given the opportunity to vote for the first time.
“They are bringing the dead from the grave for votes, not emigrants,” a teacher from Vau i Dejës told BIRN, without wanting to be identified by name.
“I was not contacted by my superiors, but by the students themselves, who asked me to find them friends and comrades in Italy,” she added.
The teacher says this was an expected situation, as previously political parties would bring emigrants by plane and bus to vote in Albania.
“The past elections brought more than 2,000 emigrants to vote in Vau e Dejës with all expenses covered,” she added.
Albanians living abroad will have the opportunity to vote for the first time in the parliamentary elections on May 11, directly affecting the electoral balance in the country. According to data obtained by BIRN, the Socialist Party in the municipalities of Shkodra, Malesia e Madhe and Vau e Dejës is using public administration employees to influence the votes of their relatives in emigration. A similar practice is also reported to be being followed in the municipality of Puka, which is run by the Democrats.
In separate interviews, a dozen administration employees with professions as nurses, teachers or local officials told BIRN that they had been ordered to submit lists of emigrant contacts; while some said they “felt pressured” to do so.
But Mayor Benet Beci, who is also the leader of the Socialist Party in Shkodra, denied the accusations.
“There is no pressure on anyone. You have concrete examples in the Shkodra Municipality,” Beci told BIRN, referring to the fact that he had not dismissed opposition supporters from their posts. He said that the request for contacts was something that had been forwarded to the SP structures with the aim of: “Engaging the membership and contacting every possible Albanian to spread our platform.”
But unlike the mayor, administration employees say that they are required to secure votes in the diaspora.
A teacher from Shkodra, who is herself part of the Socialist Party structures, told BIRN that at a minimum, an employee was required to secure 10 votes, while leaders were required to secure up to 100 diaspora votes.
“This is also in line with the prime minister’s expectation of 200,000 votes from the diaspora,” said the woman, who, like the other employees contacted, requested anonymity. “They are engaging everywhere…According to the responsibility, so is the number of votes,” she explained.
The use of the administration to fill the vote bank in the diaspora has also been identified as a problem by election monitors.
Bepin Kolvataj, a journalist and monitor, told BIRN that they have long had signals of the administration’s use in the election campaign.
“According to the information I have, they are being asked for data on every relative living in the diaspora, by filling out a form with their generalities, place of residence, mobile phone number, and others. Also, part of the administration has been engaged to participate in the diaspora’s electoral meetings, although most of them are taking place mainly on weekends outside of official working hours, but their presence is mandatory,” Kolvataj said.
Arbana Dibra, another activist and election monitor for years, says that the Shkodra region has always had problems with election campaigns. “From my experience monitoring the election process, I have noticed violations and illegal processes, such as corruption for buying votes in marginalized communities,” says Dibra.
But this time, the battle between the two political forces is about the engagement of immigrants.
“There is a great sensitivity on both sides of the political spectrum to vote, relying on family members who are abroad, collecting preliminary information if they want to register to vote,” Dibra added.
Employees of peripheral public institutions are also feeling the pressure to secure votes in the diaspora. A nurse for 20 years at the Shkodra Regional Hospital told BIRN that she was called for the first time by her superiors, who had asked her to contact at least 10 people living abroad and ask them to vote for the Socialist Party.
“They did not mention my job, but they categorically asked me to make maximum commitment,” she said.
Local and central administration employees in Malësia e Madhe have also received similar messages. Two of them told BIRN that the campaign to register voters in the diaspora had started in December.
“Since December, we have been given a deadline and we have two weeks to guarantee 10 people living abroad. The order is as follows: Name, surname, phone number, country, city or province where they live, and we are threatened with dismissal if we do not provide them,” said an employee of the Malësi e Madhe Municipality.
Another employee of the same municipality said that the pressure in rural areas was greater, since emigration there is more massive.
“In rural areas, the method is through threats for the job. We know that this works, because now the power of the threat goes outside Albania. If a voter is abroad, now that voter is contacted through family members who want legalization, a job, a subsidy for agriculture or a building permit,” he said.
A similar scheme was reported to be being used in Puka, one of the few municipalities run by the opposition. An administration employee reported that he was called and asked to guarantee the vote of emigrant relatives for the Democratic Party. The whistleblower told BIRN that they were given a ready-made list of relatives and asked to contact them.
“They called us one by one, they found all the relatives we have abroad and asked us to contact them to vote for the Democratic Party,” said a local administration employee.
The mayor of Puka, Rrok Dodaj, denied the accusation.
“The majority is trying to impose their schemes on us, since everyone is seeing what they are doing with power,” said Dodaj, who claimed that he had not been involved in the campaign at all until now./BIRN
