Election without competition for Vlora

2023-05-02 18:19:51, Politikë CNA

On April 14 of this year, one month away from the election day, the current mayor of Vlorë, Dritan Leli, ceremonially shook hands with the socialist candidate, Ermal Dredha, and published it on his Facebook page . The media described the moment as a "handover of the baton", despite the fact that the elections have not yet taken place.

Ermal Dredha, a career diplomat who has served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under both governments, i.e. under the democratic one, 2005-2013 and under the socialist one after 2013, left the post of diplomat to enter the Vlora race, in front of the candidate of the We Win Together coalition Hysni Sharra, an economist.

The right-wing opposition hasn't had much of a chance with Vlora since 1997, when the collapse of pyramid schemes turned the city into the epicenter of violent protests that brought down the state.

In the subsequent elections, Vlora as a municipality was governed by the socialists for the time being, while the democrats had small successes in some of the former component municipalities of the new municipality, which have a small population and do not carry weight.

The number of voters in the territory of Vlorë Municipality has increased a lot, from 143 thousand in 2011, to 168 thousand in 2023. On the other hand, the participation in the elections has remained almost the same. It has increased from 60 thousand in 2011 to 61 thousand in 2021. Votes for socialists have increased by about 6 thousand during this period, while votes for democrats have decreased by about 4 thousand.

Vlora is one of the areas with the lowest participation in elections at the national level and has been so for a long time. In the parliamentary elections of 2021, participation in the territory of Vlora municipality was 37% from 43%, which was the national average.

Vlora is also part of the county of the same name, which is one of the key counties in the socialists' strategy for the parliamentary elections, and this can be seen both in public investments and in the large-scale use of the socialist electoral machinery.

The municipality of Vlora extends along the sea coast in the Bay of Vlora and on the southern coast of Vlosa, while it also includes the rural areas of Center Vlora, Novoselë and Shušicë. The municipal unit of Orikum has a mixed character, a tourist town and a mountainous rural area focused on small animal husbandry. The municipality has an area of ??617 square kilometers.

Tourism is the main economic activity of the municipality, along with construction, food and light industry, and fishing. The little foreign trade of Vlora through its port has gone towards annihilation as the port remained undeveloped and is currently given a concession for the construction of buildings.

Vlora as a county has the second highest level of unemployment in Albania after Lezha, according to the findings of the Institute of Statistics. Unemployment in the county is almost 20%, with women having an unemployment rate of 24%. (BIRN)