The legal marathon for the municipality of Tirana was postponed again. The Socialists withdrew their complaint in the court session that was expected to decide whether elections will be repeated in 284 voting centers or not.

The Socialist Party (SP) deposited another complaint in the Electoral College, which wants to oblige the Central Election Commission (CEC) to inspect the request for the invalidity of more than half of the voting centers in Tirana. CEC had refused to inspect this request because the deadline had passed.

It will be tomorrow’s court session, which will be headed by Judge Sashenka Jonuzi, the one to decide if the battle for Tirana will be concluded here or if there will be following sessions.

In Wednesday’s session, July 6th, 2011, The Democratic Party (DP) asked to joint the two requests of the SP into one, which was considered a tricky technique by the SP.

“We gave up after we saw the clear attempt of the DP to join two issues, which can not be placed together. We have not given up our request for invalidity. The other suit is related to CEC’s obligation to inspect the request for invalidity. We will address again the Electoral College,” said legal representative of the SP, Damian Gjiknuri.

“We are facing a dragging technique from the SP. They attack the Electoral College openly and they say ‘we do not trust you’. This is the way we see this situation. They are trying to have a favorable decision through another group of judges,” said the legal representative of the DP, Oerd Bylykbashi.

If the Electoral College does not approve that the SP’s request to re-send the case in CEC, the SP looses its right to ask the invalidity of elections, because it does not have any legal deadline in its disposal. With the rejection of the left-wing complaint, the dilemma about the winner of Tirana comes to an end. But this is not true if the case passes to CEC. In this way, the SP would again have its legal spaces to ask the repetition of elections.