By Plator Nesturi
74 seats and Edi Rama’s wager for the “steering wheel” not only has been won, but it has also exceeded every expectation. In spite of this, the scale of the victory may be even bigger, not only because the 43 seats obtained by the DP make the distance with the historical opponent very big. Or even because the Socialist Movement for Integration, although it grew, could not do anything more with its 19 seats, besides returning to opposition and think of its strategies as an opposition party. But the gravity of the SP’s victory goes even lower. To the other political parties that managed to secure seats in the 25 June elections. Party for Justice, Integration and Unity of the Cham community, which has managed to obtain three seats, while former SP lawmaker, Tom Doshi managed to secure his mandate in Shkodra under the logo of the Social Democratic Party.
The dissolution of the small parties which have started to obtain seats in parliament, could be the last expected phenomenon that could be generated at the conclusion of the electoral process. In fact, this has already started. The new MP of PJIU in Dibra and Tom Doshi in Shkodra, declared immediately after being elected, that they would join their vote with Edi Rama. They rushed to do this before giving to the political party that ran them, sufficient time to rejoice over this victory.
It is not yet known what will become of the other two MPs of PJIU, who have won in Elbasan, maybe because the ballot counting process there has lasted longer than in other areas. However, the friendship between the head of PJIU candidate list for Elbasan with Prime Minister Rama is a known fact. And in case this attachment continues, then we will have other figures. Without making even the slightest move and without the need of an extra agreement, the new majority would take the number of SP seats at the disposal of the Prime Minister to 78. This is a significant number which is usually achieved through a coalition agreement.
The total dissolution of small parliamentary parties would fulfill the wish which has been clearly articulated by the head of SP in the campaign, “for these parties to disappear”. However, the bipartisan system is still far. Now, Albania has three clear political realities. The total number of seats that SP, DP and SMI have secured in the 140 seat parliament is 136. This is why the upcoming political battles will be held exclusively between them.
Although within the DP list, several small parties will continue to be part of the reality for a little longer, it is believed that the fact that these parties have not raised their flag in the campaign, but the DP’s flag, has penalized them a lot in their future. A winning spot on the list has done nothing else but secure survival for a seat and nothing more. This fact was even admitted by the leader of the Agrarian Environmentalist Party, Duka, who said that he shouldn’t have ran under the DP’s logo and that if he had ran under the logo of his party, he would have obtained more seats, rather than be penalized by the DP’s losses. At the end of the day, direct confrontation not only revitalizes a party, but also makes this party understand its strength.
Another special element of these elections was the fact that all strongholds disappeared. We no longer have a division between north and south in terms of preference and trend of votes. Also, those areas which used to be strongholds seem to have shifted and this leads us to believe that these areas are in search of a new political identity. This has happened in both urban and rural areas. We have also seen a shift in areas where political parties believed that they could obtain the largest number of votes and this was mostly seen with PJIU. While everyone thought that this party would be mostly voted in its traditional areas such as in Fier and Vlora, it seems that this party won its seats in Elbasan and Dibra. In these elections we also notice the phenomenon of businessmen politicians, who, in these elections, happened to be more successful than the leaders of the parties that ran them in these constituencies. Perhaps, this is the cause of the dissolution of small political parties.
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