In the show ‘With a few words’ on Euronews Albania, Neritan Sejamini explained what exactly the constitutional changes of 30 July provide regarding the lists of candidates for deputies, what the socialist majority proposes and whether this model really gives citizens the opportunity to elect their deputies.
The main change that was voted in the assembly on30 July regarding the candidate lists was their opening by two thirds.
What does this mean? Simply put, it means that a third of the list may be closed.
To simplify, let us look at the case of the Tirana district, which has the largest number of seats, 34.
One third of the 34 candidates, ie from the first place in the list to the tenth place are ranked by the party. The remaining, from 12th to 34th place will be ranked by voters.
What does this mean in practice?
In 2017, the Socialist Party received 18 deputies in Tirana. According to the Constitution, 11 of them would have been nominated by the party, and only 7 by voters.
Also in 2017, the Democratic Party got 12 MPs — 11 would have been nominated by the Party and only one by voters
Tirana is the area that gives the most opportunities — in all other areas voters are left with fewer names to rank with.
Practically, with two-thirds of the lists open, about 120 deputies out of 140 will continue to be re-appointed by the party.
We can say with conviction that opening the lists by two thirds is not a true opening of the lists.
In September 2020, the Socialist majority took another step back by proposing a new formula for lists: voters can vote in favor of a candidate, but candidates are not ranked according to likes.
The lists are ranked in advance by the party and the distribution of seats is done according to the party ranking.
Votes come into effect only in one case: when a non-winning candidate from the party ranking receives more votes than the average of the votes for each term won by the party, he takes the mandate to the winner listed below.
So he has to get more votes than the quotient that comes out by dividing the number of votes by the number of seats won by the party.
In short, if a party has received 100 votes in total, which have given it two seats, the quotient in this case is 50.
If one of the candidates ranked from number three down receives 51 or more votes he gets the last winning mandate, ie the second.
With this model of the SP in practice there will be very rare cases of any change in the party ranking.
In some cases this will even be theoretically impossible. In 2017, the DP got one deputy in Gjirokastra, while the SP one in Kukës. The mandate went to the top of the list.
