Olta Qejvani

PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS IN ALBANIA DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC CIRCUMSTANCES THROUGH POLITICAL AND LEGAL LENSES

As one of the Balkan post-communist countries, Albania faces different hindering factors in the process of constituting election’s democracy. In the parliamentary election of April 2021, Albania was challenged by an additional extraordinary obstacle, of holding parliamentary election during the Covid-19 pandemic circumstances. The Covid-19 pandemic restrictions imposed new realities to the electoral process, specifically in: development of electoral campaign, voting process, diaspora voting, voters with Covid-19, voting process in the penitentiary system and the new electoral reform placed in 2020. Therefore, through a mixed political and legal detailed analyses method of the above-mentioned factors, this paper’s aim is to respond to the research question of what the impact of Covid-19 restrictions in Albanian Parliamentary election of April 2021 is. Research data are mostly based on primary data, such as the political agreement, the legal acts of State Commissioner, Regulatory Commission, sanctions and appeals decisions and other related documents. We strongly stand that the new reality must not break in the fundamental principles of electoral process and related political actors’ rights.