My analysis of the Albanian parliamentary election of 2021

 The Albanian parliamentary election of 2021, which took place last week, threw up an interesting surprise in that the incumbent Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama, and his Socialist Party of Albania (PS) were re-elected with the same number of seats as before, 74, giving him once again a majority of 8 in the new Albanian parliament, although PS did not quite achieve a majority of votes cast (48.68%, still a high figure by the standards of countries using proportional representation in their elections).

However, PS' support was shored up by the near-collapse of the Socialist Movement for Integration (LSI) which was nearly wiped out. It was reduced to 4 seats and 6.81% of the vote, and half of its remaining seats are in the Albanian capital, Tirana. This happened despite the fact it was in opposition to PS at the time and the fact that its founder, Ilir Meta, is the current President of Albania. Some of its support went to the Social Democratic Party of Albania, which has European integration and obtaining of EU membership for Albania as a key platform; that party won 3 seats. The main conservative opposition in Albania, the Democratic Party-United for Change Alliance, won 59 seats for an increase of 13, and its increased support in Tirana proved crucial to that advance, for it once again only topped the poll in the northernmost, mountainous and agricultural counties of Albania, which include some of Albania's poorest regions (e.g. Kukes). 

Even though Albania elects its MPs via 12 counties with open-list proportional representation and a national threshold of just 1%, no parties other than the four aforementioned parties/alliances won any seats. Nisma Thurje, aka the Hashtag Initiative, a centrist anti-corruption movement, came closest with 0.65%, but only in Elbasan did it poll more than 1%. It polled badly in rural counties even though corruption is usually worst there.

Turnout once again was poor, with only 46.29% of registered Albanian voters voting. Despite the controversy that has surrounded Mr Rama, especially with his regard towards free speech and the media, he is set to continue as PM of Albania without any problems. 

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