Small parties could become an obstacle to the SP's 84 mandates, but...

2025-02-07 13:48:00, Opinione CNA

By Eduard Zaloshnja

In recent months, Edi Rama and other SP politicians have publicly announced the objective of securing 84 mandates in the May 11 elections. However, the latest MRB Hellas & DataCentrum Barometer (conducted with 1,600 respondents across Albania) showed that only 40.5% of local residents of voting age would vote for the SP today.

With a rough extrapolation of the poll figures, it turns out that around 760 thousand local voters are already voting for the Socialist Party (SP).

According to the Barometer, only 24.9% of local residents of voting age would vote for the DP today. With a rough extrapolation of the survey figures, it turns out that around 480 thousand local voters are already voting for the DP today.

According to the Barometer, a full 15.5% of local residents of voting age would vote for all small parties today. With a rough extrapolation of the survey figures, it turns out that around 300 thousand local voters are already casting their votes for small parties today.

Meanwhile, 19.1%, or about 400 thousand voters here, are not voting for any party today.

If we were to mechanically add up all the opposition votes, the SP would have a hard time getting at least 71 seats, let alone the 84 seats it is aiming for. But the problem is that if the DP manages to gather all the opposition parties around itself in a common coalition, many voters of small parties would not participate in the elections at all. Because opposition voters who are disappointed with Berisha's DP gather around their slogans...

Small parties could become an obstacle to the SP's 84 mandates, but...

But can all the small opposition parties come together in a joint coalition, separate from the DP?

The recent Lapaj-Shehaj and Qori-Lapaj clashes do not bode well for the unification of all the small parties in a parallel opposition coalition. Even Doshi's PSD is unlikely to unite with the other small parties. Meanwhile, PL, PR, PAA and others are expected to join Berisha's fold.

Meanwhile, among the small anti-Berisha parties, only a miniature Shehi-Alibeaj-Basha alliance is expected. Competing divided, the small parties have little chance of winning any mandates in the regions, where the threshold percentage of winning a mandate is high (only Doshi's PSD seems to be certain of 2 mandates in the Shkodra Region).

The last hope for the small, divided parties remains the Tirana regional capital, where a full 37 mandates are at stake. From the survey I recently conducted for "JAVANEWS" in the Tirana Region, it resulted that the small parties would have received 5 mandates, if the elections had been held today. Meanwhile, Doshi's PSD and the Shehi-Alibeaj-Basha coalition were close to the mandate. But it remains to be seen in the upcoming surveys how much the fights between the small parties will affect...

If the current new parties, like their predecessors in previous parliamentary elections, fail to win seats in the Tirana Region, Albania's 140 seats will simply be shared with the SP, the DP and the PSD. So the field will remain open for the SP to achieve its objective of 84 seats. Because today, within Albania alone, it has a lead of almost 300,000 votes over its main rival, the DP. Not to mention the lead it may have in the votes of immigrants, for whom the entire electoral arm of the SP is committed... /CNA