The referendum of the Socialist Party (SP) about the mandate of it chairman, started at 08:00 am on Saturday and it will last until 16:00 pm. Some 81.000 members has the right to vote, while some socialists MP urges for manipulations and illegal process. Lawmaker Mimoza Hafizi, who belongs to the group led by lawmaker Ben Blushi, repeated her accusations that statutory rules are being violated and asked SP members not to take part in voting. Lawmaker Hafizi also underlined that the referendum will not be an indicator of how much support lawmaker Blushi has from his party, because the referendum is solely about the mandate of the SP chairman.

Meantime, Minister of Education Lindita Nikolla, reacted by saying that the referendum is an exercise of inner democracy within the SP. Even the deputy chairman of the SP parliamentary group, Taulant Balla called on SP members to take part massively in Saturday's referendum.

"My call to every SP member of Elbasan, Korca, and all Albania is that during this exercise of democracy within the SP, every member should participate. The result is not important to us in this referendum, but participation of every socialist is important, because it is an expression of the democratization of the SP," lawmaker Balla said.