Will small municipalities end up the same as small parties?

Will small municipalities end up the same as small parties?
This article has been written for Albanian Free Press newspaper and www.afp.al

By Eduard Zaloshja

Since the day when Rama and Basha reached an agreement, it was clear that this agreement aimed at putting an end or shrink small parties. Some of them signed the de facto act of their “death” since the very next day, when they declared that they would not run on their own in the elections, while others are fighting for survival in circumstances when the two large parties are “attacking” them on a daily basis.

It is not yet known what Rama and Basha have decided for their collaboration after the elections, but they have made it clear that they will make important constitutional and electoral changes. Meanwhile, they have not yet mentioned the territorial reform, which the Socialist Party and the Socialist Movement for Integration and Party for Justice, Integration and Unity approved, without the participation of the Democratic Party.

At a time when the election campaign is being focused on a single point, on attacking the Socialist Movement for Integration and other small parties which have remained on the race and when post electoral cooperation between the Socialist Party and Democratic Party seems that it will have at least one common thing, it is more than natural for the Democratic Party to request a review of the territorial reform and this time, based on the consensus reached between SP and DP and not based on the consensus between SP, SMI and PJIU.

Because, in fact, the territorial reform held in 2015 clearly holds the stamp of political compromises that the Socialist Party made in exchange of the votes that the SMI and PJIU gave in favor of this division. So, the first technical option of the division, prepared by the government, was based on the scheme 36+2: 36 municipalities based on the traditional division of the former counties and two small municipalities belonging to minorities (Dropull and Pustec).

Once PJIU left the opposition and joined the majority, this scheme was topped up by the municipalities of Konispol and Rrogozhina and this led to SMI to demand the division of Polican from Skrapar, Perrenjas from Librazhd and Vora from Kamza. After this, important socialist MPs put pressure for the division of Divjaka from Lushnja, Belsh from Elbasan and so on. In other words, from 36+2 municipalities they turned into 59+2 municipalities.

But will the 36+2 division come back if the Socialist Party and Democratic Party reach an agreement to review the territorial division?

Maybe not exactly like this. For instance, the Democratic Party may not accept to expand the municipality of Tirana in the old borders of the former county of Tirana. However, it may accept a unification of the municipality of Vora with Kamza, to which they could attach the former commune of Zall Herr (which has remained like an island away from the center of Tirana). In other words, the former county of Tirana may only have two municipalities, one in the south of Tirana river and one on the north of it.

Small diversions from the 36+2 scheme may also emerge in some other former county, but it goes without saying that a new division scheme will have less municipalities than today. The two large parties won’t need to create new municipalities which will act as sources for votes for small parties.

The old division of the counties was based on geographic, economic, historical and customs criteria. These criteria have been tested in tens or perhaps in hundreds of years, by different political regimes. An approximate return to that division would be more than natural.

If a new division of municipalities is done, then borders for districts may also be reviewed. For instance, Kavaja (once Rrogozhina is attached to it) may be included in the district of Durres and not in the district of Tirana (a person living in Kavaja or Rrogozhina must go through Durres to reach the prefecture of Tirana). Some other small changes may also take place in other districs.

However, we must still wait 25 June and the political product that will be generated by it.

The republication of this article is strictly forbidden without a written permission from the Albanian Free Press newsroom

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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