By Eduard Zaloshnja
When the Democratic Party won the elections for the first time (in the distant year 1992), out of 1.6 million voters who turned out in the polls, this party was voted by 1 million and 60 thousand of them (as opposed to 460 thousand that voted this party a month ago out of 1.6 million voters). At the beginning of the ‘90s, no opinion polls used to be conducted, but we can easily say that the vast majority of former political dissidents and people whose properties were expropriated by the communist regime, voted the Democratic Party.
As the years went by, the votes in favor of the Democratic Party saw a constant drop. In spite of the lack of opinion polls, it can be said that the DP gradually lost support among voters because it lost support from former political dissidents and those whose properties were expropriated during the communist regime. Let us recall that in 1994, only two years after the Democratic Party had seized power, this category of society started a hunger strike, which was violently suppressed by the state, which at that time was led by Sali Berisha.
And we come to our days when opinion polls have become a natural part of public life. An opinion poll that I conducted two years ago for the right wing German foundation Konrad Adenauer, suggested that 30% of Albanian voters living in Albania come from families who were persecuted during the communist regime for political or property motives (one quarter of them come from families who have had good relations with the community regime, but they were later persecuted by it). By interpreting this percentage in terms of numbers of voters, it can be said that around 660 thousand voters living in Albania belong to this category (it’s impossible to know how many of them live abroad); the number of non persecuted people is 1,540,000 and the total number of voters in Albania is 2,200,000. How many of them voted in 2013 for right wing parties?
The opinion poll suggested that half of them, 330 thousand voted in favor of these parties in the elections which were held four years ago, around 120 thousand voted for the left wing coalition and 210 thousand of the 660 thousand formerly persecuted individuals did not turn out in the polls.
It’s the category that didn’t turnout in the 2013 elections (210 thousand) which can be considered a category of right wing voters who have been disappointed by the fact that parties which claim to belong to the right wing have not kept their promises.
In theory, this was a potential pool of votes for the Democratic Party in the June 25 elections. But the June 25 result, especially in urban areas (where the vast majority of formerly persecuted individuals live), indicated that there was a strong correlation between the drop in the number of turnout and the fall of DP compared to four years ago. This acts as an indication that 210 thousand formerly persecuted individuals, who did not vote the DP four years ago have been joined by many others (perhaps, their number may be 300 thousand now). In order for the Democratic Party to become once again a competitive party to be in power, it must convince these hundreds of thousands of former natural voters that it had to return to the ballot boxes. It must rely on several of the points of the program that PAJ (People’s Alliance for Justice) had in its program.
Note: The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Albanian Free Press’ editorial policy
