A constitutional referendum was held in

Albania Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...

on 22 November 1998. Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p133 Voters were asked whether they approved of the

constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princ ...

. It was approved by 93.5% of voters with a turnout of 50.6%,Nohlen & Stöver, p137 and came into force on 28 November.Albania 1998
Constitution Writing & Conflict Resolution

Background

In September 1997 a 21-member Constitutional Commission was formed by Parliament, including twelve members of the ruling

Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of t ...

and

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Fo ...

and nine members of the

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

. The Commission was given a six-month timeframe for producing a draft. The public were widely consulted during the process using surveys, forums and public meetings. Despite the Democratic Party boycotting the Commission until the latter stages of the process and a coup attempt by its leader

Sali Berisha Sali Ram Berisha (; born 15 October 1944) is an Albanian conservative politician and former cardiologist who served as the second President of Albania from 1992 to 1997 and Prime Minister from 2005 to 2013. He is also the current chairman of ...

, the Commission produced its draft constitution on 4 August 1998 having obtained a six-month extension. After its publication further hearings and debates were held, resulting in around a quarter of the articles in the first draft being amended. The second draft was then approved by Parliament on 21 October 1998 with 115 in favour and none against (the other 40 MPs, mostly Democratic Party members, did not attend the vote).

Results

Note that the data is inconsistent, possibly due to mistakes at polling stations not being corrected at higher levels.

References

{{Albanian elections Referendums in Albania 1998 referendums 1998 in Albania Constitutional referendums November 1998 events in Europe