Rivals neck and neck in crucial Albanian elections

ALBANIANS have voted in a general election that is seen as crucial for the country’s European Union aspirations, with surveys showing the two main rivals neck and neck.

Around 3.1 million voters were eligible to vote in the seventh elections since the fall of communism in the early 1990s, with some 4,000 candidates vying for 140 parliament seats.

The poll comes almost three months after Albania joined the Nato military alliance and took its first small step towards joining the EU by submitting its candidacy for membership.