Referendum on the restoration of the monarchy in Albania 1997

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The referendum on the restoration of the monarchy in Albania was held on June 29, 1997 at the same time as the parliamentary elections. It was proposed that from 1928 to 1944 under King Ahmet Zogu and Viktor Emanuel III. to reintroduce the existing monarchy and to install Leka Zogu from the House of Zogu as king, with Leka Anwar Zogu Reza as crown prince. According to the transitional government, the proposal was rejected by 66.8% of voters. Leka, however, claimed that a clear majority voted in favor of the proposal.

Result
option be right proportion of
Therefore 450,478 33.2%
On the other hand 904.359 66.8%
Invalid / blank notes -
total 1,354,837 100.0%
Registered voters / turnout 2,031,342 66.7%
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

As a result of the lottery uprising , Albania fell into an anarchic state at the beginning of 1997, six years after the end of the communist dictatorship and the democratization of the country. The government of Aleksandër Meksi had to resign and was replaced by a transitional government under Bashkim Fino , which asked foreign troops to restore security to the country. Parliamentary elections and a referendum on the form of government were held within two and a half months . The referendum was supposed to decide on the efforts of some smaller parties to restore the monarchy . Foreign military secured the polling stations on election day, while international observers monitored the polls and the polls. Crown Prince Leka organized events with several thousand participants in several cities across the country.

The royal family did not accept the official result of the referendum. Crown Prince Leka was convinced that 65.7% of the voters would have voted for the monarchy. After the results were published by the Central Election Commission , 2,000 people protested against the result in Tirana. After the votes were recounted, the government announced that the restoration of the monarchy had been rejected by two-thirds of voters. Leka doubted the election and drove with a machine gun and accompanied by armed supporters in front of the building of the election commission. After an exchange of fire with the police , in which one person was killed, he had to flee Albania. He was sentenced to three years in prison in absentia by a court.

On November 30, 2011, after Leka's death, Prime Minister Sali Berisha declared that there had been election fraud and manipulation and that the problem could not be conclusively assessed. Berisha blamed the unstable circumstances for the forgery. This representation did not go unchallenged:

“Accordingly, elections took place on June 29th and they went off as smoothly as possible under the difficult circumstances. The results were accepted by the major political parties as a real expression of the will of the Albanian people ... "

- Franz Vranitzky

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Nohlen, D & Stöver, P (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook , p. 133 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
  2. ↑ Nohlen & Stöver, p. 137
  3. ↑ a b c Prince Leka. Royal House of Albania, accessed September 9, 2014 .
  4. ↑ Albania: two thousand attend Tirana protest rally in support of monarchy. ATA, July 2, 1997, accessed September 9, 2014 .
  5. ↑ Ex-king's son returns to Albania. In: BBC News Online. June 28, 2002, accessed September 9, 2014 .
  6. ↑ a b Llazar Semini: Albania's self-styled King Leka this at 72. In: The Guardian. November 30, 2011, archived from the original on September 10, 2014 ; accessed on September 9, 2014 .
  7. ^ Franz Vranitzky: The OSCE Presence in Albania . In: Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg (ed.): SZE Yearbook 1998 . Nomos, Hamburg 1998, ISBN 978-3-7890-5665-9 , p. 195-202 ( PDF file ).