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Parties must field 186 candidates for 140 seats

Politiko 2025-01-22 16:07:43

The Central Election Commission announced on Wednesday that in implementation of the changes to the electoral code agreed upon between the main opposition and the socialist majority, parties participating in the upcoming parliamentary elections will have to present closed lists with 46 candidates and open lists with 146 candidates, for a total of 186 candidates each for the 140 parliamentary mandates.

Albanians will vote in these elections for the party they prefer on the one hand and for the candidate they prefer from among the candidates of that party on the other. Their vote will first select the winning candidates determined by the party and then, if the party receives more winning candidates than it has on the closed lists, the candidate with the most votes from the open lists will enter parliament. The formula guarantees that the leaders of large or small parties will be decisive in the chances of entering parliament, while in certain situations, the electoral success of one of the candidates on the open lists does not automatically translate into winning a seat.

The Tirana district will have 37 seats this time, with each party having to field 12 candidates on the closed list and 37 on the open list. If a party wins 12 seats, all candidates on its closed list will enter parliament. If one of the candidates on the open lists wins, say, 20,000 votes, or twice the usual number of votes that elect a member of parliament in Albania, he will not enter parliament.

Parties must field 186 candidates for 140 seats

Likewise, in the Fier Region, which is the second largest, the parties will run 5 candidates on closed lists and 16 on open lists for the 16 mandates of deputies elected from this region. In the 2021 elections, in Fier the Socialist Party won 9 mandates, the Democratic Party 6 and the Socialist Movement for Integration, 1 mandate. If the 2021 elections had been held with today's formula, the open list would have resulted in four mandates for the Socialist Party, one for the Democratic Party and zero for the SMI.

In the Durrës and Elbasan Regions, where 14 MPs are elected, the result in 2021 was divided into 8 mandates for the SP and 6 for the DP. In this case, three of the SP mandates and 1 from the DP would come from the open lists.

The system generally seems to strengthen the hand of the leader of the losing party in the election while the winning party will have more candidates from those who, although also appointed by the leader, have competed for real votes and real support.

As in past elections, the system is particularly awkward for small or new parties that want to run outside the tutelage of the big parties. These parties will have to find a large number of stand-in candidates whose probability of being elected is merely hypothetical. If a small party aims to win, say, one, two or three seats in the big districts and one seat in the small districts, all of its winning candidates will be determined by closed lists.

The current electoral system was initially agreed upon by Sali Berisha and Edi Rama in 2008, with a formula that, in democratic countries, with a culture of internal democracy within political parties, is not much of a problem, while in countries with a historical heritage like ours, it has created serious concerns about the excessive control of the chairmen over parliamentary groups and the creation of a parliament incapable of controlling the executive. Reporter.al