Only 3 of the 1701 candidates in non-secure lists drafted by party leaders were able to gain enough votes to secure a seat in the Albanian parliament. The remaining 137 seats will be occupied by deputies assigned by party leadership.
The counting of nearly all candidate votes in Albanian elections resulted in Fatmir Xhafaj (PS), Orlando Rakipi (PS) and Luciano Boci (PD) getting seats in parliament despite being below the threshold of secure seats in their party lists.
In October 2020, the Socialist Party passed unilateral changes to the electoral code purportedly to open party lists to race between candidates.
A list of ranked candidates is first drawn by party leadership. It contains a secure and non-secure part. Voters vote for the party and one candidate.
The votes gained by the party in elections are divided by the number of seats it has gained. This average number of votes shows the threshold each candidate in the non-secure part of the list needs to obtain in order to replace the last candidate in the secure list.
Prime Minister Edi Rama claimed back in October 2020 that their party had opened the way for genuine race among candidates to enter the parliament. Election results have shown this to be untrue.
Results show that while many candidates in the non-secure list obtained more votes than those in the secure list, only 3 got enough votes to replace party leadership favorites.
In Shkoder, for instance, Bardh Spahia of the PD got 7,219 votes, or 470 more than the party leadership top pick in the secure list, Helidon Bushati. However, Spahia will not be able to gain a seat because his votes are less than the threshold.
The same case appears in Fier, where Agron Kapllanaj obtained 9,225 votes, or about 3,000 more than Enkelejd Alibeaj, who is ranked first in the secure list.
Read more: Exit Explains: The Albanian Electoral Code Changes
