Boçi: We are considering a Constitutional Court challenge and a referendum against the new map

The Democratic Party is considering several ways to oppose the new territorial division into 46 municipalities, including an appeal to the Constitutional Court, the organization of a referendum and protests.

Luçiano Boçi, co-chair of the Territorial Reform Committee, said that overturning the map in the Constitutional Court is one of the options under consideration. In a statement to Top Channel journalist Elda Menga, he argued that the alleged constitutional violations could be sufficient to challenge the reform through an appeal.

According to Boçi, the process has been accompanied by repeated violations of Article 108, point 2, of the law on local self-government 89/90 and of the law on public consultations. He said that, if the Constitutional Court were to consider the matter, the procedure could be pursued quickly, since, in his view, all the necessary steps for carrying out the reform have been bypassed.

Another option being considered by the Democrats is a referendum. Although Albanian legislation makes it difficult to hold one and efforts to organize a referendum have been made several times, Boçi believes that political will could create a solution.

He announced that the Democrats would seek support from international partners, including Congress and the European Union, while also turning to the Central Election Commission to obtain a decision regarding the possibility of holding the referendum.

The analysis conducted by the opposition of the map proposed by the Socialist Party has revealed, according to the opposition, electoral calculations aimed at changing the political balance in favor of the majority.

Boçi cited the merger of Puka with Fushë-Arrëz, two municipalities won by the Democratic Party, emphasizing that they have the same revenues and that it is unclear which principle was used for this decision. He also cited the example of Librazhd-Prrenjas, where, according to him, the Democratic Party loses a political territory.

According to him, Selenica, which has had right-wing leadership and such a tendency, is also included in the wider area of Vlora votes. In the case of Belsh, Boçi declared that around 300 additional votes, which move and have moved in this order, affect the municipality’s political division, while its inclusion in Elbasan was done solely for electoral reasons.

Through an instruction, the Democratic Party has asked right-wing councilors to support protests against the Socialist Party’s map and cooperate with left-wing councilors, with the aim of overturning it in every municipal council.