Albania's Chams Fight to get Leader Into Parliament

The Party for Justice, Integration and Unity, PDIU, which lobbies for the rights of the Cham community in Albania, is fighting a battle with the Central Electoral Commission over its chairman's right to sit in parliament.

Shpetim Idrizi - who established the party in 2011 - has been a distinguished voice in parliament on the issue of the Cham community - an ethnic Albanian community expelled from neighbouring Greece in 1944.

He has put strong pressure on Albanian governments to push Greece to recognise the community's existence and rights - and include the Cham issue in talks between officials of the two countries.

Their core demand is for the return of the community's properties seized by the Greek authorities in the 1940s.

Though not holding any ministerial positions, the PDIU was part of the ruling coalition in the two last governments in Albania, when its members were given directors' positions in the public administration.

However, in the June 25 general election, Idrizi failed to an MP's mandate in Tirana by only 37 votes.

On Tuesday, the chairman of the election commission, the CEC, Klemend Zguri, announced that PDIU was officially disputing the result of the election.

On Monday, Idrizi published footage on his Facebook page that he said contained proof that some PDIU votes in Tirana had been counted as votes for another political subject.

"I invite you to share this video that shows that the 37 votes needed to cross the threshold of 3 per cent [to gain an MP's mandate] were stolen in a barbaric way," he wrote.

In the June 25 election, the PDIU got three seats in parliament, two in the Elbasan area and one in Dibra. None of the three is a career politician, however.

Experts believe that if the...