The Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama, has secured an unprecedented fourth term in power, after his Socialist Party won in Sunday’s parliamentary elections, according to an almost complete count of votes on Tuesday.
With 94% of votes counted, the Socialist Party (PS) had 52% of the votes, ahead of the Democratic Party (PD) in second place with 34%, according to official data from the election commission, although international observers have questioned the fairness of the vote. The Central Election Commission is expected to announce the full results on Tuesday.
If confirmed, the result would mark an improvement compared to the last elections when the PS received 49%, and would give Rama a comfortable majority to form a government. This would also allow him to continue working to fulfill his promise to bring Albania into the European Union by 2030, although many experts say this timeline is optimistic.
Rama, in power since 2013, was the favorite to win, partly supported by an influential network built during his 12 years in power, a recent period of healthy economic growth, and a fragmented opposition.
But the scale of the victory has surprised some analysts who had expected that the corruption scandals and recent unrest would harm Rama’s lead.
Instead, the decisive victory seems to prolong a sense of predictability in Albania, in contrast to other Balkan countries like Kosovo, Serbia, and Bulgaria, where ruling parties have faced political crises over the past year.
“Nobody expected to have a qualified majority for a single party. It’s like (Hungarian Prime Minister) Orban in his best days,” said political analyst Lutfi Dervishi.
The PS is on track to win 82 seats in the 140-seat parliament, while the PD will get 51 seats, according to local TV Top Channel.
Rama has gained favor from the West by accepting immigrants from Italy and sheltering Afghans awaiting visa processing for the United States.
But ordinary voters in the country say that he runs the country on a patronage system and has done little to uproot corruption and unemployment. Rama denies this, however, hundreds of thousands of Albanians have emigrated since he came to power, seeking better prospects abroad.
Rama’s turbulent third term was marked by unrest over a perceived blow to the opposition and a series of corruption scandals.
An international election monitoring mission led by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said there had been “misuse of public resources and institutional power by the ruling party” during the campaign. It said there had been “numerous reports of pressure on public sector employees and other voters, as well as cases of intimidation.”
The government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this.
