Socialists win the elections, but lose Himara

2024-08-05 11:38:00, Politikë CNA

Socialists win the elections, but lose Himara

The process of counting votes in Himare

Vangjel Tavo, former deputy of the Socialist Party at the time of Fatos Nano, former deputy of the Socialist Movement for Integration party and recently, candidate of the Socialist Party of Edi Rama for the post of mayor of Himarë, will be the mayor of Himarë for the next three years, but he has to govern, among other things, the town in which he lost the elections.

Himara voted on Sunday against the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama, but she still has to accept the socialist candidate, who won thanks to the votes received in the majority in the Hore Vranisht administrative unit as well as in the former municipality of Lukovë.

The final result is that Tavo received 5022 votes while Gjikuria, an immigrant to the USA, received 3545 votes. Tavo won with a margin of 1477 votes, of which 1024 were won in Hora Vranisht.

Tavo belongs to the Greek minority of Albania and his home is the area of ??Dropulli in the south. He moved to Himarë, first as prefect of Vlorë District and now, as mayor. Ironically, it seems that he will govern the municipality with the votes of Hora and Vranishti.

The elections in Himara took place under the tension between Albania and Greece as well as under the tension between a group of businessmen whom the government refers to as "investors" while the opposition refers to them as "oligarchs". Rama, who based his campaign on the argument that it should be a local issue and not a referendum issue for his governance, appears to have won thanks to his electoral machinery, of which he is proud, but this victory seems to leaves him with no moral right to rule Himara.

Even his candidate Vangjel Tavo, obviously feeling the defeat in the Himare unit, invited in the last hours before the elections his opponent Petro Gjikuria to join him in the role of deputy mayor. The response of the Judiciary before the elections was negative.

Officially, the Albanian state does not recognize the Greek minority in Himara, despite the fact that in the past, a representative politician of this community, Vasil Bollano, won twice against the candidates of the major parties DP or SP. The votes against the SP in Himare seem to be related to the history of the persecution of the province during the communist era, but the persecution was not uniform in all the villages as some of the constituent villages have been and continue to remain strong supporters of the Labor Party. and its successor, the Socialist Party.

The Socialist Party and its ally at the time, the Socialist Movement for Integration, decided in 2015 that the municipality of Himarë should join the municipality of Lukovë, which has traditionally been part of the Saranda District, as well as the municipality of Horë-Vranisht, which traditionally has used to be part of Vlora. At the time this merger was carried out, Hore-Vranishti and Himara were not yet connected by a road and the move was seen as a gerrymandering of the electoral map aimed at balancing the votes against Himara, which was also observed in the elections of Sunday./BIRN