By Eduard Zaloshnja
In the recent days, Edi Rama has repeatedly expressed his desire to govern on his own. In terms of seats in Parliament, Edi Rama is demanding from voters the necessary number of votes which would guarantee the Socialist Party 71 seats in Parliament. But does the Socialist Party have 71 seats today? Maybe, maybe not…
Three days ago I conducted an electronic opinion poll with 3000 respondents from all over Albania. Combining the detailed data from that opinion poll with the electoral history in each constituency, I made an approximate projection of the number of seats and based on this, if the elections were to take place on 4 June, the Socialist Party would receive 68 plus/minus 2 seats.
And why does this projection have a plus/minus 2 seats margin of error?
At least in 9 constituencies (out of 12 in total), the last seats are still up for grabs (within the statistical margin of error of the projection). This happens because 19% of voters are still undecided if they will vote or not or which party they will vote. I have distributed their votes in different parties (through a probability pattern), to achieve an approximate calculation for each constituency.
Based on my projection, in the constituency of Berat, the Socialist Party is very close to obtaining a seat. This would take the total number of seats to 69. So, based on my projection for Berat, the Socialist Party has almost 22 thousand voters more than the Democratic Party, but it can only obtain one more seat than the DP. If the Democratic Party obtains 450 fewer votes than my projection, the Socialist Party wins two seats more than the Democratic Party in Berat.
In the constituency of Durres, the Socialist Party may also win an extra seat and this would take the total number of seats in Parliament to 70 (combining this with the extra seat in Berat).
On the other hand, based on my projection, in the constituency of Korça, the Socialist Party may go down from six seats to five seats. This would take the total number of seats to 67 (assuming that there are no changes in other constituencies).
Based on my projection, even in the constituency of Vlora, the SP is at risk of falling from 8 seats to 7 seats. This would decrease the number of its seats to 66 (combined with the seat lost in Korça).
But is there a possibility that the Socialist Party wins 71 seats?
If the Socialist Party preserves all 68 seats which I have projected and wins one seat in Berat and one seat in Durres, it could well obtain 71 seats, should LIBRA not win a seat in Tirana. The seat that LIBRA would not obtain in the capital, would be obtained by the Socialist Party. This would entitle Edi Rama to the wish that he has recently expressed while meeting with voters.
Note: In the chart below we have the number of seats that the Socialist Party and its satellite parties have won in 2009 and 2013 and the seats that the Socialist Party could obtain on 4 June. The number of seats on 25 June is still unknown.
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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
