681-57, Basha’s milestone

681-57, Basha’s milestone
This article has been written for Albanian Free Press newspaper and www.afp.al

By Eduard Zaloshnja

 In the so called “Qafë-Krraba” road, the district of Tirana and district of Elbasan are divided by milestone 29. In the DP’s political route, milestone 681-57 will divide the Democratic Party led by Basha from the one led up until four years ago by Berisha.

Some analysts (such as Bushati, for instance), and some politicians (such as Imami and Topalli for instance), are predicting that the DP is heading toward self destruction. According to them, this will happen thanks to the leadership of this party by Basha. But since its beginnings (when Cleisthenes invented the voting of the leaders of Ancient Athens with cobbles of different colors), it has remained, in essence, a race of numbers.

In other words, if the DP coalition led by Basha receives more votes or parliamentary seats than the DP coalition led by Berisha in 2013, then we cannot talk of a self destruction of this party. On the contrary, we may talk of an improvement of the party’s support.

So, the 25 party coalition that Berisha gathered around the Democratic party in 2013, received a total of 681 thousand votes in the elections, securing 57 parliamentary seats. If the coalition created by Basha (which will race on 25 June under DP’s logo) manages to secure more than 681 thousand votes or more than 57 seats, his debut as leader in the parliamentary elections may be considered successful (681 may not be achieved perhaps due to a lower turnover than 2013 which was a record turnover in the past 25 years). If Basha achieves these two objectives, his debut may be considered successful. Meanwhile, it is perhaps impossible for the DP to secure 71 seats due to the current electoral system and the electoral history.

In fact, Basha did undergo a general test as leader of a national electoral campaign. In the 2015 elections (when PDIU had left the opposition coalition, joining the majority), the candidates that Basha selected for mayors received 671 thousand votes, only 10 thousand votes less than Berisha’s coalition had received two years earlier. But, we must not forget that usually, there’s a lower turnover in local elections than in parliamentary elections (turnover in 2015 was 150 thousand voters less than in 2013).

In other words, if Basha achieves good results in the first general elections, he could exceed the results obtained by his mentor, Berisha. Also, a result of over 681 thousand votes or 57 seats (or both) would mean that the current 25 MPs who were not included in the new lists, would not have any significant electoral effect.

To conclude, we can say that on June 25, Rama will race against the history of the Democratic Party, with Berisha and the politicians that the latter included in the elections of 2013, rather than a race with Rama.

The votes received by the Democratic Party throughout the years

In the chart below, we can see the number of votes that the DP led coalitions led by Berisha or led by Basha have received throughout the years. The number of votes for 2017 is based on an approximate assessment of votes that the coalition led by Basha may obtain, based on a survey that I have conducted a few months ago.

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Note: The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Albanian Free Press’ editorial policy

 

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