Constitutional Referendum, 22 November 1998

Following an invitation from the Albanian Government, ODIHR deployed an observation mission the 22 November referendum  on the constitution.

The mssion was headed by Kåre Vollan and included observers from 27 countries, including parliamentarians and public officials from the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly and the European Parliament.  In total, 200 short-term observers and 23 long-term observers and core staff members were deployed throughout the country.

According to the mission's final report: "The referendum on the constitution was held under difficult circumstances and followed a campaign characterized by political polarization. The leading opposition party, the Democratic Party (DP), decided not to take part in the process, and called for a boycott of the referendum. In a sense this jeopardized the secrecy of the vote, since participation in the vote could be seen as supporting or opposing a political party. The boycott shifted the emphasis from the substance of the constitution to the referendum as such."