A poll and three tales of those who didn't vote

2025-07-04 09:39:00, Opinione Ardi Stefa

The Central Election Commission (CEC) reported a turnout of 42.21% of eligible voters nationwide in the May 11 elections.

IFES Election Guide (international source) reported a national turnout of 46% electionguide.org.

IPU Parline shows that out of 3,713,897 registered voters, 1,664,873 voted, corresponding to a turnout of 44.8% electionguide.org+data.ipu.org+2es.wikipedia.org+2

Immediately after the elections, a lot of ink was spilled on paper, thousands of words were said and millions of letters were written to interpret the fact of why Albanians did not vote in the elections for the new Parliament.

For this reason, a two-question survey was conducted one month after the election results were announced.

The first question was whether they voted or not.

And the second question was directed to people who did not vote, asking them what the reasons were for not voting and to list them.

This question was answered:

50.7% said they did not go for practical reasons (health, work, distance, other obstacles, etc., etc.)

27.1% responded that by not voting they wanted to send a message to politics and its representatives, especially the government.

18.2% did not vote because they did not find themselves represented by any party.

The rest of those questioned refused to give any reason.

These answers, if analyzed in detail, seem to explain the "mystery" of Albanians not voting and it seems that analysts were given glasses and made them completely reform their analyses and see more clearly how Albanian society has evolved.

A little more than half, therefore, did not go to the ballot boxes because they do not consider the elections in Albania a serious process. And, since they have no hope or illusion that their vote has value or will change anything, much less will it bring down the government, they preferred to stay home, drink coffee or go to the beach, (regardless of whether they could declare illness, work or distance from the place where they are voting.)

Let alone the government wouldn't even fall. Voters aren't stupid enough not to understand that.

The first fairy tale is gone.

Analysts found another reason for the low voter turnout: the fragmentation of the opposition and its division into 7 or 8 parties, which if united would topple the government, which voters cannot topple with their votes.

But why would the opposition unite? Unknown!

Under whose leadership would the opposition unite? On what ideological basis, with what program?

How could the opposition unite, despite the fact that the majority of its voters wanted a united opposition and cooperation, but the leaders of the opposition parties did not really want a united opposition, who talked about unity but undermined every attempt at unity with exclusionary language and opposing actions?

Here's where the second fairy tale came from, and it was even three meters offside.

The third tale is not yet circulating, but it will surely be talked about during the summer months, so we have something to deal with.

Like the one that says "politics is not electoral mathematics!"

But audiences are living organisms. They don't gather, nor multiply, simply because some fraudster decides something is in their interest.

Moreover, the division of the opposition, the real lack of desire of its leaders to unite and the way the lists were formulated were a sufficient warning that a "defeated front" despite the rhetoric will not have a better or different fate. So much so that I often think that they are not really interested in coming to power, because they are not interested in Albania either.

Isn't the government eroded by scandals, corruption, and broken promises? Undoubtedly! It is logical that after 12 years of governance there would be more mistakes. And it was up to the opposition to exploit this.

Certainly not with nonsense and nonsense. But with a serious, convincing, and measured opposition discourse that, over time, would highlight another governmental alternative.

Because unlike the ruling party, which calculates everything with pencil and paper, the opposition does not base it on realistic calculations, but on "lifting the spirits", which it has been failing to create for years, on aggressive rhetoric and the eternal recycling of overused figures.

And when election time comes, the ballot boxes will determine who will govern.

This is how democracy works. Neither "electoral mathematics" nor "party arithmetic" are necessary./ CNA