TIRANA (Reuters) - Albania`s election was mostly orderly, the OSCE said on Sunday, although the main parties accused each other of manipulation in a ballot the West hopes will be the Balkan nation`s first free and fair election.
Polls predict a tight race between the ruling Democratic Party of Prime Minister Sali Berisha, one of the dominant leaders of the post-communist era, and the main opposition Socialist Party led by Edi Rama, the mayor of Tirana.
"So far it has been relatively calm," Robert Bosch, head of the Albanian office of Europe`s main human rights and security watchdog the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), told Reuters.
"There are some little irregularities but this time less than in past elections," he said.
A brief exchange of charges of manipulation between the two parties prompted President Bamir Topi, the U.S. envoy and Bosch to urge Albanians to vote calmly and not succumb to pressure.
The West sees Sunday`s vote as a test of Albania`s democratic maturity and its suitability to join the European bloc. Albania joined the NATO military alliance in April and the same month applied for European Union membership.
"Our partners` have focused their attention on the correctness of our elections. They will be decisive for the future of Albania. Surely, the parties should be more careful," Topi said.
"People should vote freely so that we realize for the very first time in the history of the Albanian transition free, correct, transparent and uncontested elections," he said.
U.S. Ambassador John Withers appealed to all to vote individually and not "succumb to any outside pressure."
"I believe very strongly that the importance of these elections is that they be free, fair, transparent and that the will of the Albanian people not the aspirations of the political parties be the fundamental principle," Withers said.
Earlier, the Central Election Commission said the voting was going well, but cited scattered problems including the lack of marker ink to make sure people do not vote twice, delays in starting the vote and discords over ID checking devices.
At one polling station in the mountainside town on Kruja, famed as the 15th-century stronghold of resistance to Ottoman invasion, a Reuters correspondent saw two separate incidents of men casting ballots for elderly women dressed in black.
A official who was putting ink on voters` thumbs to ensure they could not vote a second time said the practice was allowed, especially when the elderly had poor eyesight.
International observers say family voting for others is not allowed, but there were other instances reported elsewhere.
Outside the simple Kruja schoolhouse where locals lined up to get their ballots, Sajmir Laci, 19, part of a generation born after communism, had voted for the first time. Continued...
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