By Llazar Semini - The Associated Press

TIRANA - Repeat elections on Sunday for three seats in Albania’s parliament could finally give the country a new government and premier seven weeks after polls failed to provide a clear winner.

Election authorities decided on a revote in three of the country’s 100 districts after going through more than 300 objections challenging the results of July 3 polls. The Central Election Commission dealt with all the objections and decided they warranted repeat elections in the three zones.

The challenges have so far prevented the commission from certifying the election results, which would have brought former President Sali Berisha back to power after eight years in opposition. Although Socialist Premier Fatos Nano has remained at the helm of Albania since the contested elections, he has spent most of that time on vacation and has rarely been seen in public.

The results of Sunday’s polls should not overturn the overall results of the July 3 elections, which gave Berisha’s Democratic Party 78 of parliament’s 140 seats.

Albania’s largely ceremonial president, Alfred Moisiu, has said he would not convene parliament until authorities fully certify all the results. His decision has left Albania in a political vacuum.

“Such a vacuum of power is dangerous and damaging for the country, its economy, public order, administration and reforms,” independent analyst Remzi Lani said. “But, on the other side, there seems to be a very positive phenomenon this time — a peaceful transfer of power, which never happened in post-communist Albania.”

Berisha served as Albania’s president from 1992 to 1997, when the 60-year-old cardiologist was forced to resign following the collapse of investment schemes in 1997 that plunged the country into anarchy.

He claimed victory in the recent elections — the sixth since the 1990 collapse of communism in the tiny Balkan nation. But his own party, Nano’s Socialists and other smaller parties objected, submitting hundreds of challenges and demands for recounts of the vote.

Berisha says the runoffs would not affect the overall result and that the commission should go ahead with certifying the elections so that Albania can convene a new parliament and finally form a government. About 90 international observers will monitor the runoff.