Elections in Albania

Last weekend I have participated to the OSCE/ODHIR monitoring mission for the municipality elections in Albania. We were the only team with a 4×4 in Shkodra region: that’s way our area of competence was the northern mountainous region  (but also because I’ve explicitly ask for it!): Malesi i Madhe.

From Shkodra, it took us 2 hours of unpaved tiny road in the middle of a beautiful nowhere to reach Kir, a little rural village. The voting center was settled in an elementary school, a decrepit, abandoned-like building with no flooring, broken roof and windows.

Nobody lives there anymore, since many years, people have abandoned those mountains moving in the suburbs of Shkodra looking for a job, but also for primary needs like electricity and running water. The majority of them did not change the residency: they could have some little subsidy for the fact that they (pretend to) live in remote areas.

Because of that they are still registered in the electoral list of Kir. Political parties, in order to let them vote (for them), organize free shuttle buses from Shkodra to bring them in Kir.

I took the picture of these people waiting at the voting center of a town, a school, a community that almost does not exist anymore..

Ps. two years ago, during parliamentary election that has given an historical win to the left wing I did a Reportage on Osservatorio Balcani e Causaso, the best online italian magazine about Balkan and Caucasus region.

• Categories: Travel
• Tags: Albania, Antonio Fantasia, election, Malesi e madha, portrait, rural