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Leader of the Democratic Party in Albania, Lulzim Basha, accompanied by the leader of the Republican Party, Fatmir Mediu and a delegation of the opposition, met today in Vienna with the Secretary General of OSCE, Lamberto Zannier and representatives of the permanent Council of the ambassadors of this mission.

During this meeting, Basha has thanked the mission of observers who monitored the June 21 elections and presented the great problems, which according to him,  mined the trust of voters on the election process.

Albania's left-wing governing coalition scored a massive victory in last Sunday's local elections, winning about 62 per cent of the vote, while international observers raised concerns about allegations of vote-buying and intimidation.

With more than 92 per cent of the votes counted, the 37 parties of the left-wing ruling coalition won 62 per cent of all votes cast on Sunday while the 15 parties of the main opposition bloc won about 31 per cent.

The rest of the votes were divided among 11 parties that ran outside the two main coalitions.

While voters were offered a distinct choice from among a range of candidates and fundamental freedoms of expression and assembly were generally respected, the politicization of institutions involved in the 21 June local elections in Albania undermined the effective administration of the process, international observers concluded in a statement issued today.

In Albania, following a two day period without any declarations, the main political leaders, head of majority, Edi Rama and that of the opposition, Lulzim Basha publicly addressed the citizens on Tuesday evening.

The first one to address was Basha, who considered the elections as a step backwards for the country and added that the main feature of the process was the massive purchase of votes and the efforts of  SP and SMI to rig the polls.

The process of ballot counting in Albania is coming to an end and so far, the majority of 61 municipalities has been won by the left wing majority under the logo of the Alliance for European Albania coalition led by Edi Rama and speaker of Parliament, Ilir Meta.

This governing coalition has won the largest municipalities in the country.

The process has been officially concluded in less than half of municipalities. Out of 28 municipalities where the result has been announced, 20 of them have been won by the left wing and only eight of them by the opposition.

After counting nearly one third of the ballots in the local government elections in Albania, the left wing of the governing majority is leading by a large margin.

The ballot counting has ended in the early hours of Monday in 7 small municipalities and all of them have been won by left wing candidates.

The race for the large cities is still not clear, but the tendency seems to favor the left wing.

Albanians on Sunday go to the polls to elect 61 new mayors and 1,610 councillors in local elections that are considered a double challenge for the country.

Polling stations opened at 7am and close at 7pm. About 3.37 million Albanians are eligible to cast votes.

In Albania, the Central Election Commission (CEC) published a little before Sunday midnight, the turnout percentages based on its district.

Following a calculation of the majority of polling stations, the turnout is one million and 530 thousand voters or 57.54% out of 3.4 million eligible voters.

The highest turnout has been marked in the north, in Diber, with around 58% and the lowest turnout in Vlora with around 37%. The counting process has started in a small part of ballot boxes.

Early results indicate a strong advantage of the governing majority.

Eduard Kukan, former Slovak foreign minister and Member of the European Parliament, on Friday urged Albania's parties to respect the law and to fulfil promises to ban people with criminal backgrouns from holding or stand for office.  

Speaking ahead of the local elections, he called them "an important test for the consolidation of democratic processes in Albania and the country's further EU integration.