Although the PS won a majority of 74 out of 140 seats in Parliament, allowing it to govern alone for the coming four years, the situation on a local level is rather different.
During the local elections of 2015, the PS, LSI, PDIU, and several other left-wing parties former the Alliance for a European Albania (AShE), while the PD, PR and other right-wing parties formed the Popular Alliance for Work and Dignity (APPD).
Out of 61 municipalities, the AShE won a majority of the mandates in all but three. The APPD won in Shkodër and Vau-Dejës, while Greek minority party MEGA won a majority in Finiq.
However, with the LSI leaving the coalition with the PS during the recent parliamentary elections, the coalition of left-wing parties lost its majority in an additional 42 municipal councils, including major centers such as Shkodra, Kamza, Durrës, Lezha, Gjirokastra, Tirana, Kukës, Kavaja, Berat, Fier, and Elbasan.
Especially municipalities where the margin of the right-wing opposition led by the PD together with the LSI is small, it is expected that the PS will try to win over opposition council members to join their side.
Especially Elbasan, where the opposition now holds a minimal majority of 26 out of 51 seats in the council, is expected to show some shifts in allegiance. The same holds for Fier, Lushnja, Berat, Maliq, Kavaja, Kukës, and several other municipalities where the difference between the majority and the opposition is a single seat.
The largest shifts have occurred in municipalities where the LSI won a relatively large share of the AShE votes in 2015. For example, in Skrapar the new opposition holds a majority of 80%, and in Vora 76% of the municipal seats. Also Kamza, where the left-wing coalition had a small majority of 54%, the balance has shifted back to the opposition in this tradition PD bastion.
A similar political situation existed in 2013–2015, when the LSI had shifted sides to the PS and in many municipal councils the right-wing coalition lost its majority.
At the time, this led in Tirana to many confrontations between then PD mayor Basha and the new left-wing majority headed by the PS and LSI. It remains to be seen whether Mayor Erion Veliaj will face similar obstacles until the local elections of 2019. In Tirana, the new opposition holds a small majority of 32 out of 61 seats, meaning that only 2 “converts” would be enough to shift the balance back to the party of Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj.
