MASARYK UNIVERSITY, BRNO Faculty of Social Studies Department of International Relations and European Studies

Thesis topic:

The influence of the electoral system on the party system in Albania

Author: Gerti Peshkopia (učo 390600) Field of Study: FSS EP European Politics (Eng.) Programme: Master's degree programme

Supervisor: PhDr. Věra Stojarová, Ph.D.

I hereby declare that this thesis I submit for assessment is entirely my own work and has not been taken from the work of others save to the extent that such work has been cited and acknowledged within the text of my work.

Date: Signature:

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Acknowledgments

My first acknowledgment goes to my supervisor, Professor Vera Stojarova, for all her help and suggestions about this thesis. I have to thank her for the encouragement for I have learned a lot from her experience.

I want to express my gratitude to the academic and technical staff of the Masaryk University. It has been a valuable and unforgettable experience.

In addition I want to thank my colleagues that have been very kind to me, especially the Albanian colleagues in Brno.

Last, but not least I want to thank my Family who have strongly supported and believed in me during this long and difficult way, especially my friend, Eda Lika. Without their help I couldn’t reach the end.

Thank you all

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Abstract

This thesis is focused in parliamentary elections of Albania since 1990. It deals with the electoral systems and the party systems in general. The research question of the thesis is: What impact had different electoral systems on party system of Albania in the period 1991 – 2014. A special focus is given to the electoral systems used in Albania for eight parliamentary elections and their effects in the party systems. The selection of the electoral systems is, almost, depended on the preferences of the two main parties. They have a strong influence in the management of the electoral process. The more proportional the electoral system, the bigger is the number of parties represented in the parliament and better representation of the vulnerable groups according to the party spectrum.

Keywords: Albania, electoral system, party system, political parties.

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Abbreviations

ACE Electoral Knowledge Network

AV Alternative Vote

BC Borda Count

BV Block Vote

CEC Central Election Commission

DP Democratic Party

SP Socialist Party

MMP Mixed Member Proportion

MP Member of Parliament

LPA Labor Party of Albania

LIST PR List Proportional Representation

LV Limited Vote

MMP Mixed Member Proportional

FPTP First Past The Post

OSCE Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

ODIHR Office for Democratic Institution and Human Rights

PBV Party Block Vote

PR Proportional

SNTV Single Non – Transferable Vote

STV Single Transferable Vote

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TRS Two-Round System

“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.”

Abraham Lincoln

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ...... - 2 -

Abstract ...... - 3 -

Abbreviations ...... - 4 -

1. Introduction ...... - 7 -

2. Parties and party systems ...... - 9 -

2.1 Conceptualization of political parties ...... - 9 -

2.2 Conceptualisation of party systems ...... - 12 -

2.3 Parties and party system in Albania ...... - 16 -

2.3.1 Historical political parties in Albania ...... - 16 -

2.3.2 Party system since 1991 ...... - 18 -

2.3.3 Political reality of the Socialist Party ...... - 20 -

2.3.4 Political reality of the Democratic Party ...... - 23 -

2.3.5 Political reality of the Republican Party ...... - 24 -

2.3.6. Political reality of the Human Rights Union Party ...... - 25 -

2.3.7. Political reality of the Socialist Movement for Integration ...... - 25 -

3. Electoral systems ...... - 26 -

3.1 Electoral system theories ...... - 26 -

3.2 The electoral systems used in Albania ...... - 42 -

3.3 Electoral behavior ...... - 47 -

4. The impact of electoral systems on party systems ...... - 51 -

5. Concluding remarks ...... - 77 -

Bibliography ...... - 80 -

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1. Introduction

The electoral process is an important tool of the democratic system to choose the representatives of the people. It is a process of selection and a decision by a group of citizens to select their representatives. Democracy as a main component provides the freedom for selection and the freedom of voting. The electoral process gives the opportunity for the population “to sit together in different period of times” and take decisions.

The goal of the thesis is the introduction and analysis of the electoral and party systems in Albania since the democratic changes. The research question is: What impact had different electoral systems on party system of Albania in the period 1991 - 2014. I will focus on eight parliamentary elections, their results and the scores of the parties. The study presents in concise form the impact of the electoral systems on party system of Albania.

Theories from three main authors (Giovanni Sartori, Maurice Duverger and Pippa Norris) will be analyzed for the development of the thesis. Giovanni Sartori party systems will be used in order of exploring the party systems used in Albania, by beginning from one party system in the communist regime, to multi party system from 1990 till the elections the last elections. Maurice Duverger is based in the organizational side of the political parties, and this will be brought in the Albanian context. Last, I will use Pippa Norris divisions for measuring the mechanical effect of the electoral systems on the party systems.

The first chapter of the thesis will deal with parties and party systems in general. What the functions of the political parties are and how the party systems can be classified. Sartori makes a division between the number of the relevant parties and their ideological polarization. He makes a description of the parties in the political spectrum and created a typology consisting of six party systems. In the same chapter I will also deal with Maurice Duverger, the organizational side of the political parties.

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The continuation of this chapter will be focused on the parties and party systems in Albania. The foundation of new parties in Albania dates back in 1920, the first party in Albania was called Progressive Party. During the years were created many new parties by reaching nowadays quite a high number with more than 66 registered parties. This chapter is followed by the political reality of the main relevant political parties.

The third chapter will focus on the electoral systems. I will briefly describe the main types of an electoral system and its elements. There are different types of electoral systems beginning with the majority, then the mixed system (majority and proportional) and the proportional types. According to the elements of an electoral systems they are three, electoral formula, the ballot structure and the district magnitude.

After that, I will focus on the electoral system during the communism period, its influence in the party system and its impact in the Albanian society. Following, I will deal with the democratic future of Albania after the fall of communism. The electoral system had changed very often by preserving the influence of two large parties.

The fourth chapter of the diploma thesis will deal with the impact of the electoral systems on the party systems. In this part will be elaborated the whole final results of the parliamentary elections from 1991 till nowadays. Through this analysis, depending on the electoral system used, the number of parties represented in the parliament differed from one election to another. The biggest number of parties that have gained at least one parliamentary seat in the parliament was that of elections 1997, with 11 political parties.

The concluding remarks part will show the results of the thesis and the answer of the research question. At last, some recommendations that will help in the improvement of the electoral system in Albania and the increase number of effective parties in the parliament will be given.

For the elaboration of the thesis I have used materials, newspaper, books from internet and library sources. Additional to them are the Electoral Codes of Albania, the Electoral Law, Central Election Commission Data for the elections, as well as final reports on the electoral elections developed by Organization for Security and

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Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), KIPRED, ACE Network etc. All these institutions have developed reports on the electoral elections in Albania.

2. Parties and party systems

2.1 Conceptualization of political parties

Political parties play the role of mediators between the citizens and the constitutional organs, and without them we cannot understand democracy. All the political parties have some general functions:

- “Representation

- Elite formation and recruitment

- Formulation of the goals

- Pronunciation and accumulation of interest

- Socialization and mobilization

- Organization of the government” 1

A brief description of these functions will be developed below.

Representation

The aim of the political parties is the representation of the voters in the parliament. By presenting the programs, they try to influence the voters and represent their will in the government. The will of the people takes an important consideration for the political parties.

Elite formation and recruitment

Through a broad membership the political parties realize two functions: first, their financial existence through the membership fees and second, the formation of the political elites. By a selection process the political elites show themselves and determine the leading of the political party.

1 Gezim Pakashtica, “Parties and Party Systems”, (2012), pg. 233. - 9 -

Formulation of the goals

The other function of the political parties is the formulation and the communication of the goals. Nationwide parties gather the interests of the whole society and formulate them according to their party programs.

Pronunciation and accumulation of interests

They gather and focus on some special interests by developing them in their official structures. They try to be focused on as many interests as they can, in order of gaining national votes. Through the pronunciation function they expand the electoral basis for a better representation in the elections.

Socialization and mobilization

Through the internal debates and electoral campaigns the political parties educate and socialize the members. They influence their members by supporting the democratic system and respecting the democratic rules.

Organization of the government

The political parties help in the formation of the government in a country. The parties can be created either by one party, if it wins the majority of the votes necessary for creating the government or by an alliance of parties. They facilitate the cooperation between the Legislative and the Executive Power.

Maurice Duverger and his theories

Maurice Duverger is a famous French scholar who had studied the evolution of political systems. His basic work was the book Les Partis Politiques (1951), where its main focus was political parties. The most famous approach of Duverger, known as Duverger’s Law, is “that plurality elections favors two-party competition” 2

2 Rein Taagepera and Bernard Grofman, “ Rethinking Duverger’s Law: Predicting the Effective Number of Parties in Plurality and PR Systems - Parties Minus Issues Equals One ”, (European Journal of Political Research 13, 1985), pg. 342. - 10 -

At the moment, I will focus on the organizational side of the political parties and make an analysis according to Duverger. He begins his assumption by elaborating the party structure according to two parts: on one hand is the organizational side and on the other hand is the relation of the membership. On the organizational side, he distinguished four core elements: “ the party cell, the party militia, caucus and the branch” 3 The party cell and the party militia take the form of almost military organizations, typical for the 20’ and 30’. It could be said that the first type party was part of the Bolshevik era, where communism has its beginning; the latter was part of the fascist organizations. Both of them wanted the dictatorship system instead of a democratic one. Force was their primary tool in order to reach their objectives. For the caucus party “connections are based not on quantity of members but on quality of connections. Caucuses dissolved in between elections, so the constituency organizations are not permanent” 4 and “the caucus formed a closed circle into which you could enter by co-option or as a delegate.”5 The caucus parties have a small number of membership and they do not seek to expand and benefit from this enlargement. It is a closed group, which is very hard or almost impossible to join or enter. Contrary to the caucuses’ party, the branch type parties are more opened and focused in the membership. The branch is a part of the caucuses’ party. They are more organized than caucuses. “The branch is extensive and tries to enroll members, to multiply their number and to increase its total strength.” 6

According to the other part of the Duverger’s structure, the relation of the membership side , he “ distinguished the “cadre parties” and the “mass parties.”7 The distinction between them is done upon the membership. “ The cadre party is the equivalent of the caucus party, it is a decentralized and weakly linked, as opposed to this the mass party requires a more centralized leadership and it is more strongly linked.” 8 The mass party aims at involving as many members as possible. Their goal is to increase the membership and to extract political elite which will lead the party and then the country.

3 Janos Simon, “The Change of Function of Political Parties at the Turn of Millennium” , (Institut de Ciences Politiques i Socials (ICPS), WP. num 221, Barcelona, (España) 2003, pg. 8. 4 Unit 2: “ The Evolution of Political Parties” , Reserves: Aldrich, LaPalombara and Weiner, Neumann, Duverger – University of California, San Diego. 5 Peter Mair, “The West European Party System” , (Oxford University Press, 1990), pg. 39. 6 Ibid. 7 Simon, supra note 3, p. 9. 8 Ibid., p. 9-10. - 11 -

Through this high level of membership, the mass party finance comes from the members due to fees and donors. Mostly, they do not take money from capitalist finance; and so they remain independent in their decisions.

On the other hand, the cadre parties are composed by intellectuals and professionals and not so from high level of membership. “Influential persons, in the first place, whose name, prestige, or connections can provide a backing for the candidate and secure him votes; experts, in the second place, who know how to handle the electors and how to organize a campaign; and last of all financiers, who can bring the sinews of war.” 9 They are more focused in the quality of the representatives rather than the quantity. The cadre parties are closer to financial resources coming outside the party.

The number of cadre parties has decreased and nowadays the parties have become more and more catch-all, similar as mass party. On the other hands, officially they take funds from businesses and have strong connection with it, similar as cadre parties, as well as from the membership fees and voluntary donors as mass parties.

In the Albanian case, the political parties are well organized, with experienced structures and what is more important; they have a high number of members. The political spectrum is composed by two main parties, DP and SP and some minor parties which form the coalitions in order to win the elections or make a strong opposition. As Duverger stressed, the mass parties are focused more on the expansion of the membership. The same is used even in the Albanian case, the linkage between the party members is weak and many people see the parties as “job offices”; they engage in the party in order to gain the power and find a better job.

2.2 Conceptualisation of party systems

The basic ideas of the political parties are the same: mobilizing too many people, nominations of the candidates, competing in the election and gain the power to implement their programs. Among the parties there is a high level of polarization and division, even though nowadays they are becoming more and more catch-all parties, without a strong ideological division.

9 Mair, supra note 5, p. 41-42. - 12 -

The concept of the polarization of the political parties has been developed from many scholars, two of whom are Anthony Downs and Giovanni Sartori. “First, Anthony Downs (1957) introduced the concept of the spatial modeling of party systems, in which political parties (and voters) are aligned along a Left and Right continuum.” 10 Down’s idea consists on the fact that in the two- party systems the parties aim to merge to the center, while in the multiparty systems, the parties according to their ideologies tend to be divided into Left and Right dimension. Second, is the approach developed by Giovanni Sartori. “He specifically focused on the degree of polarization within a party system and argued that there were both centripetal and centrifugal forces that influenced parties’ locations along the Left and Right scale.”11 This is the most influential work towards the party systems and its classification. For Sartori, there are two dimensions of the party systems which are really important: “the number of relevant parties and the degree of ideological polarization.” 12

Giovanni Sartori and his theories

The simplest way to characterize a party system is to count the parties that have gained seats in the parliament and their position. Sometimes scholars may implement even an electoral threshold to count party positions. But these criteria are not very accurate because they do not certify the parties' electoral weight.

Sartori came out with the relevant and non-relevant political parties in the system, if they have the potential to create coalitions and blackmail the government. He also argued about the system whether it is centrifugal or centripetal. Also, his argument touches upon the description of the position of the parties in the political sphere, what their ideology is. As a result, Sartori ended up with the following typology consisting of: “1) Single – party system, 2) Hegemonic party system, 3) Pre dominant party system, 4) Two party system, 5) Moderate multi party system and 6) Extreme multi party system.”13

Single party system

10 Russell J. Dalton, “The Quantity and the Quality of Party Systems Party System Polarization, Its Measurement, and Its Consequences” , (Comparative Political Studies, Sage Publications, 2008), p. 3. 11 Ibid., p.3-4. 12 Scott Mainwaring, Rethinking Party Systems Theory in the Third Wave of Democratization: The Importance of Party System Institutionalization , (Kellog Institute: The Hellen Kellog Institute for International Studies, 1998), pg. 4. 13 Giovanni Sartori, “Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis” , (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), p. 164. - 13 -

In this party system exists and it is allowed to exist only one party. This party does not give space for any kind of pluralism. There are three subtypes of the single party system:

a- “One party totalitarian

b- One party authoritarian

c- One party pragmatic.” 14

The first two subtypes are part of the dictatorship and authoritarian regimes and the third one does not have a clear ideology. The totalitarian party system has a strong coercion while the other two have less coercion to the people.

Hegemonic party systems

In these party systems it is very important the collection of all power in a single hand. According to Giovanni Sartori, “to share an office does not necessarily mean that the power is also shared. Even if the satellite parties are given administrative, parliamentary, and governmental positions, they are not participants’ optimo jure, of full rights, and their inferiority status vis – a – vis the hegemonic party is bound to affect heavily their chances of independent behavior.” 15

Sartori makes a distinction between the ideological – hegemonic party and the pragmatic – hegemonic party.

Pre - dominant party system

This party system is part of the party pluralism side of the political spectrum. This system is “more than one party system in which rotation does not occur in fact. It simply happens that the same party manages to win, over time, an absolute majority of seats (not necessarily of votes) in parliament.” 16 In these systems all the parties compete in free and fair elections; they challenge the dominant party, but the voters most of the time do not change their preferences.

Two party systems

14 Ibid., p. 197. 15 Ibid., p. 205. 16 Ibid., p. 173. - 14 -

In the two- party system the party system is dominated by the role of the two major parties. Under this system, usually the party that rules the country is called majority party and the party in opposition is called minor party. Mostly, the elected officials are part of the major parties and the role of the minor parties is really minimal. Giovanni Sartori distinguishes two major problems on this party system: when we can call a country belonging to the two party systems and when we have two type party systems. Sartori gives answer to the first problem when “we have a two party format whenever the existence of third parties does not prevent the two major parties from governing alone.” 17 The answer of the second problem is the time in power that a political party has. A party that stays in power after every election means we have a dominant party system. So, the basic idea of the two party systems is the alternation of the parties in power.

Moderate multi- party systems

In the moderate multi- party system the number of parties is very small and “the direction of the competition is centripetal, that is, the main parties tend to converge toward the centre of the left- right scale to attract the support of the moderate electorate. At the centre are one or more small parties with whom the two big ones on either side may form a coalition.” 18 In this system the distance between the parties is very limited and they are able to form the coalitions to make possible the formation of the government. The existence of the extreme parties is very rare. The moderate multi- party system is closer to the two- party system due to the existence of the main parties and some very limited small parties in the center.

Extreme multi- party systems

In the extreme multi- party system there is a high degree of polarization among the political parties. They try not only to change the government but also the regime itself. For this system, it is very difficult to create the coalitions and some parties are excluded from the negotiations for creating the government. Another characteristic is “an occupied centre. There is one main party placed at the centre of the left- right axis which represents the “system” against which extreme system parties are opposed. The

17 Ibid., p. 165. 18 Daniele Caramani, Comparative Politics , (2 nd Edition, Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 246. - 15 - centre party is always in power and becomes also irresponsible and unaccountable.” 19 Centrifugal competition encourages the political parties to move from the center to the extremes to form the government because the center is already occupied. “The competition is centrifugal and accentuated by a bilateral opposition on both sides of the centre.” 20

The degree of ideological polarization

The other dimension for party systems for Giovanni Sartori is even the degree of ideological polarization or in another way the distance between the parties in a party system. For Sartori, a high degree of polarization means the existence of the left- and right- wing parties in a system. According to him, “party systems with extreme left- and right-wing parties- such as communist and nationalist parties- display centrifugal forces of competition and thus a high degree of ideological distance between parties. Party systems without extreme left- and right- wing parties display centripetal modes of competition, because all relevant parliamentary parties compete for voters in the centre of the ideological spectrum.” 21 These systems are polarized due to the existence of the strong ideological parties. Scholars like Babones and Pelizzo, say that “low levels of polarization can be found in highly fragmented party systems, meanwhile high levels of polarization can be found in non-fragmented party systems.” 22

2.3 Parties and party system in Albania

2.3.1 Historical political parties in Albania The lack of internal democracy and the eager for personal interests and power are some of the reasons for the fragmentation of the political parties in the Albanian party system. The will of the people is expressed through the representation process. “They do play a central role in the process of creating and negotiating working solutions for public affairs.” 23

19 Ibid., p. 247. 20 Ibid., p. 332. 21 Kurt Richard Luther, Ferdinand Mèuller-Rommel, “ Political Parties in the New Europe: Political and Analytical Challenges” , (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 144. 22 Salvatore Babones, Riccardo Pelizzo, “The Political Economy of Polarized Pluralism” , (Research Collection School of Social Sciences, Paper 44, 2004), p. 3. 23 Democracy Building, “Political Parties” . Available at: http://www.democracy-building.info/political- parties.html . - 16 -

Going back in history, the first steps of Albania towards the foundation of new parties were marked after World War I, beginning with the registration of the first Albanian political party, the Progressive Party. The years 1920 – 1924 were the cornerstone of the country to the creation of a political life. “ More important, notably, were the first parliamentary elections, the formation of political groups and their parliamentary activity and the approval of the “Extended Statute of Lushnja.” 24 In this Statute it was announced the electoral law of 1920 in which it was stated that the military force and the women did not have the right of vote and the period of conducting elections had been between February – April 1921. During the campaign there were two main groups: People’s Party run by Fan Noli and Progressive Party run by Hoxhe Kadriu. Both parties based their programs on western and democratic spirit. They pledged for building a state of law in Albania and an independent and balanced judicial system, modern reforms, as well as the creation of a clear balance of power. According to the right – left division, the “People’s Party” was more “right wing;” it was in favor of the capitalist way of development and supported the bourgeoisie; it was more liberal; on the other hand, the “Progressive Party” was more “left wing”; it supported the lower strata; it was more in favor of the socialist way of development and more conservative. The lack of experience and of organization capacities was very obvious. Despite this, the parliamentary life, the political discourse and political programs were a step forward to the democratic changes of Albania. The parliamentary life took the parliamentary pluralistic characteristics with two sides: the opposition and the governmental parties, and with a third party, smaller than two others. It preserved this status till the end of 1922, when in the country “ appeared the strong authoritarian trends of Ahmet Zogu, who from his position as the minister of interior, in December 1922 became Prime Minister. In these conditions, in the liberal-bourgeois circles appeared a strong stream against him. People’s and Progressive Party were dissolved.” 25 Ahmet Zohu came in power and Fan Noli went in opposition. It was a hard struggle for the latter to resist against the pressure coming from Ahmet Zogu. Noli struggled for a long time with the authoritarian regime of Zogu, with parliamentary reforms and eradication of feudalism. During his regime, Albania turned from an unstable country to a monarchic system. Ahmet Zogu was proclaimed King. He governed until April 1939, when Italy invaded Albania and King Zogu left the country.

24 Assembly, Republic of Albania, Brief History of the Albanian Parliament . Available at: http://www.parlament.al/web/Historiku_5995_1.php . 25 Gjergj Erebara, “History of Albania 1912 – 2012” , (Shqip (Albanian) Newspaper, Tirana, 2012). - 17 -

Although, the first signs of the foundation of some minor communist groups were shown after World War I, the creation of the Albanian Communist Party was marked in 1941. The communist party was led by Enver Hoxha, who was the First Secretary of the party. The end of War World II brought internal changes in the political life. “On 2 December 1945 the elections for the Consitutional Assembly were held. The Law on the Constitutional Assembly stated that, except the candidates of the Front, there could compete also candidates from other groups.” 26 But, this was only stated in the law, because in reality no one could compete if they were not part of the communist party. As such, the one-party system had been established. In most cases, in elections, the turnout was more than 90% and the votes in favor of the Communist party were more than 90% as well. The elections were more a formality rather than a fair and democratic process. The parliament was composed by 250MPs of only one electoral subject. His period was characterized by the elimination of the opposition, deportation from the houses of people who did not support the party line, as well as death penalty for the “enemies” of the system. Everything was state owned property and was controlled by the secret police. The period of 1944 – 1990 was marked as a dark period of the history of Albania. “This one -party system had been preserved till 1991 when the political pluralism and multiparty system was established in Albania.” 27 The fall of the communist regime is the period when new political parties were registered and the Albanian Labour Party changed its name into the Socialist Party of Albania.

2.3.2 Party system since 1991 The new democratic system placed Albania among the other democratic states through the first pluralistic elections held in the same year. “Pluralism, the instigator of democracy, was seen as the only alternative to cure what Albania was suffering for almost 50 years.” 28 With a lack of democratic culture and a bad economic situation the foundation of new parties was seen as the hope for the people to express their interests and demands. Soon this perception changed and people were disappointed by the political parties due to their internal behavior. “Although the multi-party system in Albania made possible the fall of the totalitarian system it still seems to bring no huge change. Parties behave in an autocratic rather than democratic way where there is no real party competition, political dialogue or

26 Bledar Hoti, “Albanian History of Parliamentarism, 33 Leaders of Albanian Legislature since 1912” , (Shqip Newspaper, Tirana, 2012). 27 Endri Xhaferaj, “Party System and Social Cleavages: the Case of the Post-communist Albanian Elections” , (PECOB’s Papers Series, 2011), p. 7. 28 Dorian Jano, “On Parties and Party System in Albania: What implications for Democracy” , (Central European Case Studies: Volume 2, 2008), p. 3. - 18 - co-operation.” 29 They became more and more closed and dominated by the party leader and a lot of clans. What took more importance in a negative aspect is that the state is identified with the party in power.

Constitutionally, Albania is a multi- party system where a party to be registered should have no less than 3000 founding members. This request should be deposited in the Court of First Instance in which it should be “included a) the name and surname of each founding member, b) the personal number, and c) his/her residence.” 30 Then, the Court takes the decision about the registration of the political party based on the principles of the constitution, described in Article 9.31

The finances of the political parties have always been a grey area in the political system of Albania, the law “On Political Parties”, nr. 8580, dated 17.02.2000, describes the financial resources of the political parties. They consist of:

- “membership fees,

- other assets earned legally and

- financial support to a certain limit as provided in the State Budget, defined in the annual law as approved by the Parliament.”32

Although, stated by law as multi party system, looking at the everyday reality, Albania is closer to the two- party system with two main parties dominant in the party system, the Democratic Party of Albania and the Socialist Party of Albania. In the last elections of 2013, 66 33 political parties were registered in the country but a significant number of them do not have political activity. Looking at the official results of the 8 electoral processes held in Albania since 1991, it is obvious that the weight of the small political

29 Ibid. p. 14. 30 Law no. 10 374, “For some Additions and Changes of Law no. 8580, date 17.2.2000 "On Political Parties", Amended” , 10.2.2011, Article 2. 31 1. Political parties are created freely. Their organization shall conform to democratic principles. 2. Political parties and other organizations, the programs and activity of which are based on totalitarian methods, which incite and support racial, religious, regional or ethnic hatred, which use violence to take power or influence state policies, as well as those with a secret character, are prohibited pursuant to the law. 3. The financial sources of parties as well as their expenses are always made public. 32 Mirela P. BOGDANI, “Legal Rules on Electoral Campaign Financing Albanian Case” , Transparency of Money Flow in Politics , (Transatlantic Conference on Transparency Research, 2012), p. 4. Available at: http://www.transparencyconference.nl/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Bogdani.doc. 33 National Democratic Institute, Albania Election Watch , (Volume 1, May 22, 2013), p. 3. - 19 - parties on the electorate remained too low. On the basis of influence, only some ten of them have a real impact.

On contrary to the western countries where the two- party system produces a stable and effective government, in the Albanian case these two parties create crisis and political instabilities. “The anarchy of 1997, the quasi destabilization in 1998, and the frequent political and institutional crises that Albania is going continuously” 34 are some of the main effects of Albanian lack of democratic culture. Professor Kosta Barjaba, in his research project writes that “the idea that Albania, the democracy and their future depend on them was strongly rooted among the leaders of the new political parties. This led to a kind of partitocracy and to a tendency of political parties to totally monopolize the development of the process of transition.” 35 This kind of partitocracy was more demonstrated in the two main parties DP and SP. The process of creating elites which will lead the government and the country towards the transition processes was more a spontaneous result rather than a competition with ideas and alternatives. “But mostly it was a result of the selection and the preferences of the old political elite, in order to maintain its influence and prerogatives in the future developments of the country.” 36

2.3.3 Political reality of the Socialist Party This sub chapter will describe the political reality of the Socialist party since its creation till nowadays. The Socialist party is part of the left wing of the spectrum and is one of the two largest parties in Albania. It was led by Fatos Nano, then by Edi Rama (former Mayor of Tirana), currently, Prime Minister of Albania.

After the fall of communism the Labor Party of Albania faced the dilemma to either destroy or leave the political sphere or to undergo a major reformation. “ The need for restructurement was not just a claim of some individuals who wanted to prolong the life of this political force, but a task dictated by the new circumstances of the time.” 37 This transformation would not be focused only on the ideology but also in the internal structure and organizational terms. “But, the first attempts to change the Labor Party in the beginning of the transition were really chaotic. Thoughts about the role that this force had to play were

34 Jano, supra note 28, p. 13. 35 Dr. Kosta Barjaba, “Albania in Transition: Elite’s Role and Perspective”, (1998), p. 21. 36 Ibid. 37 Servet Pellumbi, “Political Pluralism-Experiences and Challenges”, (Tirana, 2007), p. 28. - 20 - usually contradictory.” 38 The whole country was in a real chaos, with unstable institutions, lack of order and tranquility and what was most important, an unknown mysterious future.

According to Servet Pellumbi, a well known official of the SP and one of the founding fathers of this party, in a meeting about the future of Labor Party were discussed three options:

- “Rescue of the Labor Party and its adaptation to the new conditions.

- Beginning of its transformation starting from the name change.

- And dissolution of the Labor Party and rapid reconstitution of a new left party.” 39

The second choice had more supporters; the Labor Party was transformed into the Socialist Party of Albania. He described the change not as a matter of changing the name but a shift from its past into the new identity.

The rapid changes that occurred after the fall of communism, even in other countries faced the scholars with different difficulties, especially in the terminological aspect. The same happened even in the Albanian case, where it was very difficult to give an explanation about the left wing. “Finding right terms to define the left wing in Albania it means to face no less difficulty due to its complex and unique history, as many contradictory terms were in circulation.” 40 Professor Artan Fuga, supports the idea that the Socialist and Social Democrat Parties were nothing else than ex- communist parties. As a secondary definition, he uses the term ex – communist as a way to describe that these parties had the same methods of behaving and the same mentality. “However, while operating in different social – political context, they were required to moderate their programs and strategies. This transformation process is described by the same author in his book “Left not Right” through four phases.” 41 These phases characterize the transition period of the Socialist Party. I will describe them briefly in the following lines.

The first phase lies from January 1990 till June 1991. This was the time when it was held the meeting about the future of the Labor Party. “This phase of change of the political thought is characterized by the hesitation and the lack of internal coherence, as it answered in some point the pressure from the old cadres of ex Party of Labor, which still influenced the

38 Ibid., p. 30. 39 Ibid. 40 Artan Fuga, “Left not Right, Change of the Albanian Socialists under the perspective of contemporary political philosophy”, (Ora, Tirana, 2003), p. 74. 41 Ibid. - 21 - political and ideological decision making process of this party.” 42 The other part of the party wanted to abandon the old ideology and made possible new changes. A possible abandonment of the past would mean an immediate decrease of the number of possible voters.

The second phase lies from June 1991 till March 1992, time when the second parliamentary elections were conducted. These elections were won by the Democratic Party with a huge majority. “ In this period, the Socialist Party accepted the need of creation of a mixed economy, where public and private property would coexist, without forgetting to underline that this model would bring with it unpleasant consequences in the social plan.” 43 The SP, on the way of transformation, pledged to support the democratic rules.

The third phase lies from March 1992 till June 1997. This period was marked with attempts to implement a program based on democratic values. In the Congress of the Socialist Party, the leader of the party stated: “Our motto will be the transition and consolidation of the market economy, with a possible minimum of the social pain. Whatever movement towards the market economy bringing social and political concussions will be considered from us unacceptable and harmful for the people.”44 They supported the idea of equality and justice for all the people. They would respect the private enterprises, but would implement some legal limitations. The collective interests will prevail towards the individual one, but the major promoter of the economy will be the free market economy. “While, according to foreign politics the Socialist Party underlined the importance of the Western engagement of Albania.” 45

The fourth phase begins from 1997 till nowadays. Since 1997, when the Socialist Party took the power, their policy does not change so much from the one applied by the Democratic Party. At this time, happened a large of mass privatizations, “ almost massive withdrawal of the state from too broad sectors of economic life of the country, from limiting social spending and reducing the numbers of public service officials.”46 This politics was the opposite of the one supported and promoted by the Socialists, it was a pure liberal program. As Servet Pellumbi, pointed out, “the ideology of the Left was transformed by passing from

42 Ibid. 43 Fatos Nano, “The speech in the Congress” , (Zeri i Popullit (People’s Voice) Newspaper, Tirana, 1991). 44 Ibid. 45 Pellumbi, supra note 37, p. 32. 46 Ibid. - 22 -

Stalinism to the utopian socialism, and here we consider the years 1991 – 1992, meanwhile starting from 1997, it went toward an outstanding economical and social liberalism.” 47

2.3.4 Political reality of the Democratic Party The Democratic Party was founded in 1990, after the permission of pluralism in Albania. Since its foundation the DP wanted to represent different groups and classes of the society. “Among its adherents were dissidents, nationalists, ex-communists, liberals, students, employee representatives, republicans, monarchists and anyone else who were against the Labor Party of Albania.” 48 These were the first supporters and members of the party. In the beginning of its foundation they proclaimed the idea of “Democracy”, “Europe”, “Western values” as well as “Freedom of market economy”. Their aim was “to preserve the independence, integrity and the sovereignty of Albania, strengthening the national unity, realization of wishes and aspirations of the Albanian people for a modern, democratic and pluralistic country.” 49 These were the basic principles of the program.

In the beginning, the DP gathered many organizations from different spheres of the society. It seemed more as a union of organizations, individuals and intellectuals in an “umbrella organization”. “It is therefore not surprising that after winning the elections, the party unity broke down under the pressure of personalities and political trends in war among them.” 50 From this party many new parties were born by completing the multiparty system. Albania was in a deep economic, social, judicial and integrative crisis. No one believed in state institutions and in the abilities of the latter to manage the situation. The population was distrustful of everything. So, the “key guidelines where the program of this political force was based were: to struggle in building a pluralistic democratic society; to strengthen the rule of law, justice and social equality, emancipation of women, full integration in the European processes. ”51 So, the “democracy”, “freedom”, “market”, or “Europe” categories were articulated as the opposite side of the previous system. Since its beginning, more than a party with clear ideas, the DP was an anti – dictatorship party, keeping it as a strong “stone” in the struggle with the opposition. They attacked the opposition for their connection with their communist past.

47 Ibid., p.33. 48 Aleksander Meksi, “December 90’: Documents and materials” , (UET Press, Tirana, 2010), p. 42. 49 Fatos Lubonja, “The Introduction of Political Pluralism in Albania” , in Barjaba, K. (ed.) Albania’s Democratic Elections: Analysis, Documents and Data , (Berlin: Edition Sigma, 2004), pg. 42. 50 Elez Biberaj, “Albania in transition: The Difficult Way towards Democracy” , (Ora Tiranë, 2001), p. 420. 51 Meksi, supra note 48, p. 68. - 23 -

As a newborn force composed of people of different spheres with different interests and different beliefs, many internal disagreements were born. There were two major parts: the radical one, composed by the students of December Movement, who played a key role in the overthrow of the power of the communist leaders, lead by Azem Hajdari; meanwhile there was another moderate part that wanted a smooth transition from communism to democracy, lead by the intellectuals. As we have mentioned earlier, from the DP new parties were born, many of which had their ideological profile connected with right wing parties. Two of them were the National Front and the Monarchist Legality. “ The basis on which they relied was former landowners and former political prisoners. Both parties wanted to re-establish the property rights, radical anti communism, national unity, etc.” 52 They used the same program as the DP, by adapting it with their voter’s preferences. Despite this, they did not have any important number of voters, but remained under the influence of the DP. They formed alliance with the DP and its party officials and gathered governmental positions. During communism, “to a part of the ex- owners the property had been confiscated and they had suffered the economical crises of the time facing the survival challenges. And some others realized the thousands year’s dream of which they had suffered in prisons and internment camps to emigrate to the West.” 53 The DP was seen as the representative of all these groups and this was believed as one of the reasons why these small parties did not get the right support. Another reason is the absence of the party professional that were members of those parties. They were more focused in the DP than in the other parties. Moreover, Albania faced the lack of reformists and ideologists that would lead the country towards the democratization process. “ Well known scholars, economists, philosophers, lawyers, political scientists, etc. were trained under "communism" conditions and had no knowledge and experience on the democratic system.” 54 They were connected with communism and saw democracy suspiciously. This was clearly demonstrated in the political program of the political parties. They were formally divided between right, left and center parties.

2.3.5 Political reality of the Republican Party The Republican Party was founded on January 1991 by a group of intellectuals lead by Sabri Godo. It was the second opposition party after that of Democratic Party. Its main

52 Roland Lami, “The Uncertainty of Structuring Reports: Political Parties – Ideology” , (Universiteti i Tiranes, 2013), p. 33-34. 53 Ibid., p. 34. 54 Ibid. - 24 - focus, since its foundation, was the land property. Their leaders were mostly influenced by the Democratic Revolution of Fan Noli who wanted the return of the property to the owner. This party is a loyal ally of Democratic Party, even due to its right wing ideology.

As almost all the political parties in Albania, even the Republican Party did not make the process of renewal of the elites. It ”was headed by Sabri Godo from its foundation in 1991 until 5 November 1997 and by Fatmir Mediu from November till nowadays.” 55 It has formed the government with DP as a strong ally, but in general it has been a small party.

2.3.6. Political reality of the Human Rights Union Party This party aroused from the political association, Omonia, in 1992. It was aimed in representing the greek minority in the Southern part of Albania. Due to the laws, in that time, that forbid the creation of the political parties on ethnic basis, it changed its name in Human Rights Union Party. “ The party was founded by Vasil Melo and is currently headed by Vangjel Dule.” 56 In the elections of 2013, the HRUP has won only one seat, that of the head of the party Vangjel Dule. In the latest legislature he is appointed vice president of the Parliament.

This party is placed in the center of the political spectrum by heaving a strong influence in governmental formation after every parliamentary election.

2.3.7. Political reality of the Socialist Movement for Integration The Socialist Movement for Integration was founded in September 2004, after a split from the Socialist Party. This party was the first among the political parties in Albania to use “one person one vote” method to elect the party structures. Since its foundation the head of the party was Ilir Meta. As a new political force the SMI competed in the elections of 2005 by winning four parliamentary seats. “In the 2009, LSI, again because of the Albanian youth, won four seats and was the determining party in forming the government. LSI allied with the Democratic Party in order to avoid a constitutional crisis and was well positioned to maintain the role of kingmaker in future elections.”57

The SMI is positioned in center left of Albanian political spectrum. The goal of the party is the European integration of the country. They try to moderate the political discourse

55 Robert Elsie, “Historical Dictionary of Albania” , New Edition, (European Historical Dictionaries, no. 42, Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland and Oxford, 2004), p. 384. 56 Ibid., p. 458. 57 Official website of the Socialist Movement for Integration. Available at: http://www.lsi.al/ .

- 25 - among the political parties. The membership base of this political force is the youth; in the latest legislature, after 2013 elections, SMI has it has 16 parliamentary mandates and the youngest deputy is only 25 years old.

3. Electoral systems

3.1 Electoral system theories Electoral systems regulate the relation between the parties, the relation of the government with the parliament, the internal relations of the party itself as well as the relation of the party with the society. It is impossible and worthless the universal implementation of the electoral system. Its implementation depends on different factors and specifics of the country. On the other hand, “the manipulation of the electoral system regardless the concrete political and social structures endangers the risks of loosing the real function of elections; if an electoral system is not accepted and known from the entire population, so the power of the majority representative is not accepted by the minority. 58 The acceptance of the majority from the minority takes an important role in the western democracies. The majority takes the decision and governs the country, but it respects the role and the ideas of the minority. The government is the representative also of the minority.

Electoral systems and the constitution: the 80’s – 90’s have been very important towards democratic institutions. Many countries, especially those ex- communist countries or Southeast and Central Europe, ran towards the democratization processes. They have been focused in the representative government model. “ This process is encouraged with the widespread realization that the choice of institutions can have a substantial impact on the wider political system – for example, more and more is recognized the idea that an electoral system can help to develop and establish cooperation in a divided society.” 59 The selection of the electoral system, nowadays, has taken a major significance. It has a deep impact in all the political and social institutions.

58 Urjana Curi, “Law, Politics and the selection of the electoral system in Albania”, (Scientific Journal Indepence, Independence University Vlora, (Vlora), 2013, p.63-64. 59 Ibid. p.69-70. - 26 -

The electoral system is composed by two main variables: “ 1. The electoral formula used (if a system is either majority or proportional, which is the formula used for the translation of votes into seats in parliament), and 2. Size of the region, not how many voters’ live in a region, but how many members of parliament are elected in this region.” 60

There are numerous issues which are connected with administrative aspects of the elections, together with the electoral system, such as: the registration of voters, distribution of the voting centers, party lists and party candidates, etc. These need to be kept in mind when they select the electoral system. A clear attention needs as well the technical aspects like the regional borders of the country, the ballot paper and ballot boxes, the counting and information process.

Types of electoral systems, a brief summary:

According to ACE, The Electoral Knowledge Network, “just over half (114, or 54 percent of the total) of the independent states and semi-autonomous territories of the world which have direct parliamentary elections use plurality-majority systems. Another 75 (35 percent) use PR-type systems and the remaining 22 (ten percent) use semi-PR systems, all but two of which are Parallel systems.” 61 These percentages are shown in Table One.

Table 1: The World of Electoral Systems (May 1997)

Total Total # of 'Free' 'Not Free' Population Established Population Countries/ % % % % Countries/ % Countries/ % (in Democracies (in Territories Territories Territories millions) millions)

FPTP 70 33 1,850 45 11 30 1,273 71 35 36 17 37 Block 10 5 139 3 1 3 1 0.1 3 3 3 6 Vote AV 2 1 18 0.4 1 3 18 1 2 2 0 - TRS 31 15 427 10 1 3 58 3 7 7 11 24 Parallel 20 9 443 11 1 3 126 7 5 5 5 11 SNTV 2 1 5 0.1 0 - - - 1 1 0 -

60 Ibid. 61 The Electoral Knowledge Network (ACE), “The Global Distribution of Electoral Systems” , Available at: http://aceproject.org/main/english/es/esh.htm . - 27 -

List PR 67 32 968 23 15 42 158 9 39 40 10 22 MMP 7 3 265 6 4 11 162 9 4 4 0 - STV 2 1 4 0.1 2 6 4 0.2 2 2 0 - 211 4,119 36 1,800 98 46

An electoral system is the way that the overall votes of a country, should be translated into seats in the legislature. For Menocal, “electoral systems or the manner in which votes cast in a general election are translated into seats in the legislature, matter because they influence key governance dimensions and dynamics.” 62 But why is it important to study the electoral systems? Some scholars think that the electoral system may help in preventing or giving rise to conflicts; others think about the responsibility of the MPs towards the electorate or the party leader; corruption and electoral malpractice have also important values in these studies.

Prior to show the division of electoral systems, I will describe briefly the main elements of an electoral system. These elements include:

- “The electoral formula (plurality/majority, proportional, mixed, or other);

- The ballot structure (i.e. whether the voter votes for a candidate or a party and whether the voter makes a single choice or expresses a series of preferences);

- The district magnitude (the number of representatives to the legislature that a particular district elects).”63

The electoral formula

The electoral formula is divided between plurality and majority; combined; proportional representation and other. Within these formulas, there are nine sub- divisions: First Past The Post (FPTP), Two-Round System (TRS), Alternative Vote (AV), Block Vote (BV), Party Block Vote (PBV); Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) and Parallel systems are both examples of the mixed model. “List Proportional Representation (List PR) and the Single Transferable Vote (STV) are both proportional systems; and In addition, there are other systems such as the Single Non- Transferable

62 Alina Rocha Menocal, “Why electoral systems matter: an analysis of their incentives and effects on key areas of governance” , (Overseas Development Institute, 2011), p. 2. 63 ACE, supra note 61, Overview of the Electoral Systems. Available at: http://aceproject.org/ace- en/topics/es/onePage . - 28 -

Vote (SNTV), the Limited Vote (LV), and the Borda Count (BC) which do not fit neatly into any category and can be regarded as three further sub-families.” 64 These nine sub- divisions determine how the votes will be translated into seats in the parliament. Through analysis of the electoral formulas, many scholars predict the future composition of the government.

Majority

The plurality/ majority are part of the majority family systems. “The aim of majority electoral systems is to create a “natural” or a “manufactured” majority, that is, to produce an effective one- party government with a working parliamentary majority while simultaneously penalizing minor parties, especially those with spatially dispersed support.”65 This system, minimizes the chances of small or minorities parties to be represented in the parliament, and going towards the way to the elimination of small parties.

The plurality voting system is a system which is based in a single- winner. Under First- past- the- post system or winner- takes- all, the candidate with the more votes, takes the seat in the parliament; therefore, it is not necessary an absolute majority of votes. They usually use the single- member electoral district.

The same rules are mentioned even for the majority voting system; but with the exception of the majority of the votes of the constituency needed to win a seat for the parliament. A candidate needs more than half of the votes to be elected. Due to the cleavages that this system produces, some scholars have argued that “it can produce a tyranny of the majority where one group always wins and there is a permanent losing minority” 66 and “while the majority election system seems to be straightforward and simple at first glance, it leads to rather complex decisions that are not transparent to voters.”67

64 Extracted from Electoral System Design: the New International IDEA Handbook, (International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 2005), p. 3. 65 Pippa Norris, “Electoral Engineering: Voting Rules and Political Behavior”, Classifying Electoral Systems, Chapter 2, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p.2. 66 William A. Darity, Jr. “International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences” , 2nd ed., vol. 9, 2008), pg. 6. 67 Democracy Building, Democracy Building: Elections . Available at: http://www.democracy- building.info/voting-systems.html . - 29 -

As a result, in both systems the main parties are strong and have enough power to appoint the candidates for the Member of Parliament; they create strong parliament but lack of different party representatives; voters are forced to elect the candidate among the two main parties.

I will begin describing these sub- divisions by analyzing five electoral formulas which compose these systems. On the majority part will be the Alternative Vote and the Second Ballot; on the plurality part will be First Past The Post, Block Vote and Single non- Transferable Vote.

Alternative vote

The process of Alternative Vote is one of the two parts of the majority systems. It is used to create a single- party government, with a special aim, to eliminate the small parties. It is commonly used in Australian House of Representatives and in Ireland. How does it work? “Instead of a simple “X” on the ballot paper, voters rank their preferences among candidate (1,2,3). To win, candidates need an absolute majority of votes. Where no one candidate wins more than 50% after first preferences are counted, then the candidate with the least votes is eliminated, and his or her votes are redistributed among the other candidates. The process continues until an absolute majority is secured.” 68

2nd ballot

The second ballot system is the other part of the majority system and it is the same as the Alternative Vote, except the way of the distribution of the seats. “In these, any candidate obtaining an absolute majority of votes (50% or more) in the first round is declared elected. If no candidate reaches a majority in this stage of the process, a second round of elections is held between the two candidates with the highest share of the vote.”69 Voters are invited to vote in two rounds and the possibility for the decrease number of turnout is very high.

First Past The Post

First Past The Post, usually called “winner takes all”, is the first system of the plurality sub- division. How does it work? “Countries are divided into territorial single-

68 Norris, supra note 65, p. 49. 69 Ibid., Chapter 2, p.5. - 30 - member constituencies; voters within each constituency cast a single ballot for one candidate; the candidate with the largest share of the vote in each seat is elected; and, in turn, the party with the largest number of parliamentary seats forms the government.” 70 Under this system, voters try to vote for the main parties, in order not to lead to spread their vote by choosing smaller parties. Maurice Duverger’s assertion for the First Past The Post, “the simple- majority single- ballot system favors the two- party system” 71 , known as Duverger’s Law, is a well- known statement. On the other hand, “the presence of the “swing voter” or the moderate middle tends to moderate parties’ ideology, pushing them towards the center. This prevents extremism, and tends to produce more stable government” 72

Block Vote

The Block Vote system helps in maintaining a closed relation between the candidate and the voters. “The Block Vote system is similar to FPTP, but with multimember districts. Each elector is given as many votes as there are seats to be filled, and they are usually free to vote for individual candidates regardless of party. The candidates winning a simple plurality of votes in each constituency win office.” 73 It is based in a single round election and it does not let many opportunities for women and minorities in order to be elected and win seats in the parliament.

Single non- Transferable Vote

Single non- Transferable Vote is the last voting formula in the majority system. Here “multiple candidates from the same party compete with each other for support within each district. Those candidates with the highest vote totals (a simple plurality) are elected. Under these rules, parties need to consider how many candidates to nominate strategically in each district.” 74 This system is based in a multimember district, and the candidates need a simple plurality to win a seat in the parliament; there is no need of

70 Pippa Norris, “Choosing Electoral Systems: Proportional, Majoritarian and Mixed Systems” , For Contrasting Political Institutions, (Special Issue of the International Political Science Review, Vol 18 (3), July 1997), p. 3. 71 Maurice Duverger, “The number of parties” , p. 301. Available at: (http://bcpolscima.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/duverger-number-of-parties.pdf ). 72 Implementing Gender Quotas, “Comparison of PR and Majoritarian Electoral Systems” . Available at: http://www.mwcoalition.org/quotas/id12.html . 73 Norris, supra note 65, p. 48. 74 Ibid., Chapter 2, p. 4. - 31 - quota as well. It is used in many countries like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Combined system

Combined, or mixed, system is an electoral system which combines the two formulas, Proportional and Majority. According to Massicotte & Blais, “a mixed system is a system where different formulas (plurality and PR, majority and PR) are used simultaneously in a single election.” 75

This system, usually gives to the voter two possibilities for voting, one for the candidate and the other for the party, therefore it needs a better explanation for the voters to whom and how to vote. A better explanation should be even for the way these two systems are combined among themselves. I will describe below the two subdivisions of this system, the differences between Independent and Dependent subdivisions.

Independent

Usually, mixed systems are designed to increase the representation of the minority and vulnerable groups. But this is not always the case. In an independent system, “the votes are counted separately in both types of seat so that the share of the vote cast for each party on the party lists is unrelated to the distribution of seats in the single- member districts.” 76 As a result, this system is closer to the majority than to the proportional family. This system is used in Taiwan and Ukraine, where they have strong cleavages in their societies.

Dependent

Combined- dependent system, or the Mixed Member Proportion (MMP), “include both single- member and party- list constituencies, but the distribution of seats is proportional to the share of the vote cast in the party list.” 77 The best example of this system is in Germany, where two votes are given to the voters. “Half of the members of

75 Andre Blais and Louis Massicotte, “Electoral Systems” , in Lawrence LeDuc, Richard G. Niemi, Pippa Norris, (eds), Comparing Democracies 2, “New Challenges in the study of Elections and Voting , (SAGE Publications Ltd, 2002), pg. 54. 76 Norris, supra note 65, Chapter 2, p. 8. 77 Ibid., p.56. - 32 - the Bundestag are elected in a single- member constituencies based on a simple plurality of votes. The remaining MPs are elected from closed party lists in each region.” 78 This is a good example of the way how this system works.

In a comparison with combined- independent system, “ dependent mixed systems are likely to be more proportional than independent systems because the allocation of seats by proportional rule is designed specifically to counteract the distortions created by the majority formula.”79

Mixed member systems have their subtypes which vary according to different countries. For example, independent mixed systems have its subdivisions like coexistence, superposition and fusion types; Dependent mixed systems can be divided into subdivisions like correction and conditional.

Proportional

The proportional system works in multimember constituencies, gives a lot of chances for minority parties to compete and to gain seats. This system with a low electoral threshold creates the possibilities for more parliamentary parties and it “can serve as a check against the abuse of political power by any one faction.” 80 But on the other hand it is very difficult to create party coalitions and what is more important; the risk of overthrowing the government is very high. It could bring political instability and deadlocks.

According to the principle of the PR is “that parliamentary seats are allocated according to the proportion of votes cast for each party. The main variations concern the use of open or closed lists of candidates, the formula for translating votes into seats, the level of the electoral threshold, and the size of the district magnitude.” 81 The systems that use the party lists could be divided into two groups according to the formula for translating votes into seats: Highest average method and the largest remainder method; as well as another subdivision that is the Quota used in Single Transferable Vote.

78 Ibid. 79 Matt Golder, “Democratic Electoral Systems Around the World, 1946-2000” , (Electoral Studies 32, Electoral Studies (2013), p. 12. 80 Implementing Gender Quotas, Supra note 72. 81 Norris, supra note 65, Chapter 2, p. 6. - 33 -

Party lists (Closed or Open)

Proportional party lists system is used in many Western European countries. Party lists could be open, in which the voters decide about the candidate and chooses to vote; or could be closed, in which the voters select only the party and the latter decides about the candidate which has won the seat. In countries like Israel, all the country is one constituency, but there are other countries like Czech Republic that the lists are regional.

According to the Highest averages method, it requires that the votes for each party to “be divided successively by a series of divisors, and seats are allocated to parties that secure the highest resulting quotient, up to the total number of seats available.” 82 The candidate that has the higher score, win the seats in the parliament. The D’Hondt method uses the divisors like 1, 2, 3, etc; but the Sainte- Lague divides the votes with the odd numbers like 1, 3, 5, 7, etc. The modified Sainte- Lague replaces the first number with 1.4.

The Largest remainder method uses the minimum quota. The “Hare quota is the total number of valid votes in each constituency is divided by the total number of seats to be allocated. The Droop quota raises the divisor by the number of seats plus one, producing a slightly less proportional result.” 83 Obviously, is really important the district magnitude and the number of seats per constituency.

Table 2 - Electoral Systems in Comparative Perspective

Type of mechanism Quota Hare Quota = voters a seats Droop Quota = (voters a (seats + 1))+1 Divisor D’Hondt Divisors: 1, 2, 3, 4,…. Sainte-Laguë Divisors: 1, 3, 5, 7,…. Modified Sainte Divisors: 1.4, 3, 5, 7,…. Laguë

Another important element in the Proportional system is the electoral threshold that the party needs to pass in order to gain parliamentary seats. “The formal threshold

82 Ibid., p. 51. 83 Norris, supra note 70, p. 5. - 34 - can have an important impact upon proportionality and the opportunities for minor parties.”84 On the other hand, “the larger party has enough support to pass the threshold for sure, while the smaller party may or may not pass the threshold” 85 , and as a result they will gain together in a party block to raise their power and pass the electoral threshold.

To find the effective threshold it is commonly used the formulation by Taagepera 86 :

75% T = m + 1 where T is the effective threshold and m is the district magnitude.

Single Transferable Vote

Single Transferable Vote is based on the use of quotas. One candidate to be elected needs to reach the minimum quota; if no candidate reaches this quota then the candidate with the least votes is eliminated and the votes are spread according to the second preferences. This system works in a multimember constituency and the parties nominate as many candidates as they think they could win in a constituency. “Voters rank their preferences among candidates in an ordinal fashion (1 st , 2 nd , and 3 rd ). The total number of votes is counted, and then the number of seats divides this vote total in the constituency to produce a quota.”87 STV gives better opportunities to the voters to elect their preferred candidate and split their votes across different parties.

The ballot structure

The ballot structure is another element of the electoral system, which is important because it determines whether the voters will vote for the candidate or for the party which he / she represents; it would be a single vote or a list of preferences; how it will mark the vote. Daniel W. Gingerich goes further in his analysis about the linkage between the ballot structure and political corruption. According to him, “first, ballot structure gives rise to a particular mode of evaluating candidates. Second, given the

84 Ibid., p. 6. 85 Andrei Bremzen, Georgy Egorov, Dmitry Shakin, “Electoral Threshold, Representation, and Parties' Incentives to Form a Block” (International Society for New Institutional Economics (ISNIE), 2007), p. 3. 86 Rein Taagepera, “Nationwide threshold of representation”, (Electoral Studies, 2002), p. 386. 87 Norris, supra note 65, Chapter 2, p. 7. - 35 - mode of evaluation adopted by voters, candidates choose a campaign style which is optimal given the anticipated campaign styles of their opponents, especially opponents belonging to their same party. Third, the campaign style adopted by candidates determines the cost of conducting campaigns. Finally, the cost of campaigns determines the propensity of politicians to engage in acts of corruption.” 88 In this sense, on one hand it gives power to the voters to choose the preferred candidate, on the other hand, it increases the competition among the party members to be elected.

The district magnitude

The district magnitude is the number of the candidates that will be elected in each electoral district. “When district magnitude is large, party reputation overshadows the reputations of individual candidates, since there are too many candidates for voters to uniquely identify them. Where district magnitude is small, however, the party has an incentive to select candidates who already have distinct individual political profiles.” 89 For example, all PR systems require the electoral district to have more than one member, due to its electoral formula. According to Geys, “a larger district magnitude, that is, a higher number of legislative seats allocated in the district, is favorable to a higher number of parties, ceteris paribus” 90 , because it affects the proportionality of the system.

The way of translating votes into parliamentary seats, is a way to look at the electoral systems and see how much proportional they are. To be more proportional it means that each national vote casted from the political party has to be translated in the percentage of the parliamentary seats. The relationship between the country and the votes, as well as the wasted votes is necessary to see the proportionality of the electoral system.

The proportional electoral system, advantages and disadvantages 91 : The proportional electoral system is based on the right spread of the votes casted from the political parties into parliamentary seats. How much is the percentage

88 Daniel W. Gingerich, “Ballot Structure, Political Corruption and the Performance of Proportional Representation” , in (Journal of Theoretical Politics, 2009), p. 4. 89 Eric C.C. Chang, “Electoral Systems, District Magnitude and Corruption”, in (British Journal of Political Science, Vol.37 (1), Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 7. 90 Benny Geys, “District Magnitude, Social Heterogeneity and Local Party System Fragmentation” , (Party Politics, Vol. 12, Sage Publications, 2006), p. 286. 91 Luan Omari, “Parliamentary System” , (Elena Gjika, Tirane, 2000), p. 147. - 36 - of votes gained by the parties, so is the percentage gained in the parliament. In this way, the parliament becomes colorful and every group is represented. The proportional system gives an advantage even for the minority groups to be represented and show their ideas.

Another advantage for this system is the foundation of new parties. These parties are easily founded and could successfully compete in the national and local elections; they could present candidates and gain votes. Due to insignificant formalities, they need to gain only one vote in each district, to have the opportunity to gain seats in the parliament. But this system has its negative aspects. “It promotes the spread of parties and interest groups into branches. For this reason, to the proportional election system often responds a parliament divided in many parliamentary groups, of which emerge many unstable coalition governments with known weaknesses of leading and many crises.” 92 As a result, there are a lot of collapsed governments that do not finish their mandate; the responsibility is spread among the parties which compose that government.

Disadvantage of the proportional system is the rise of the extremist party and large power given to the small parties. These parties could hardly influence the winning program of the large party. Left and right extremist side of the spectrum take power due to the national spread of votes. As for the small parties, “large parties may be forced to form coalitions with much smaller parties, giving a party that has the support of only a small percentage of the votes the power to veto any proposal that comes from the larger parties.” 93

“The majority electoral system, advantages and disadvantages” 94 : In contrast to the proportional system, in the majority systems, the country is divided in many electoral districts; then those are divided in as many parliamentary seats determined per region. “ Elected, it is considered the one who, in the electoral district, has won the absolute or relative majority of the votes. This, in normal conditions,

92 Curi, supra note 58, p.72-73. 93 ACE, supra note 63, Disadvantages of PR systems . Available at: http://aceproject.org/ace- en/topics/es/esd/esd02/esd02.b 94 Omari, supra note 91, fq. 144. - 37 - is reached only from the candidates supported by the large parties or the regional united party.” 95 The parties should represent the interests of a large group of people in order to gain votes and reach the majority. Through this mechanism they modernize internally and leave out of their programs the representation of extreme groups.

The majority electoral system creates a better connection between the voters and the elected candidate. The distance is short and the independence of the candidates from the party leaders is large. The majority system is closer to the two party systems, due to its formula and the final results, even though it cannot produce in reality the two party systems. The government is strongly dependent on the stability of the parliamentary group; the government is more unilateral and the failures and successes are clearly obvious.

If we talk about the disadvantages of this system, we can say that representation of minorities and vulnerable groups is almost impossible. They should be concentrated in one district in order to gain many votes and gain seats. “ A good example in this case are the women, who, while knowing the circumstances, nowadays find it easier to gain seats in parliament rather than gaining votes in an electoral district.” 96 They can gain seats from the historical tolerance like the “positive discrimination” formula. The majority system gives more opportunities for a narrow majority of the candidates to be represented in the parliament.

The creation and foundation of new parties is almost impossible. If the campaign will be competitive and will end with a close result for both main parties, the stability of the government will be fragile. “For this reason, the success of the majority system provides that both parties to be fairly open by all sides and not to stand side in a principled opposition towards each other.” 97 It needs a consensus among the people and better understanding of the system. It is important that the enemy should not be seen as an enemy. If the country is divided, according to the social aspect, this system could have negative consequences due to the fragility of the government.

95 ACE, supra note 63, Electoral Systems . Available at: http://aceproject.org/main/overview- albanian/sistemet-e-zgjedhjeve . 96 Curi, supra note 58, p.74. 97 Ibid. - 38 -

In the end, it is very difficult to determine which electoral system suits better for one or another country. “ Depending on the historical tradition, the existing party system and social circumstances in a society should be selected one or another system” 98 and “suitability depends on the degree of realization of political participation of the citizens and from the ability of the elected candidates to govern.” 99 Often the selection of the system is done from different casualties, different needs and ideas, as well as from internal and foreign interventions. “Such decisions are often influenced by one or two of the following circumstances: political factor lacks basic knowledge and information, so that the choices and consequences of different electoral systems are fully accepted; or rather, political actors’ use their advanced knowledge for the electoral systems to advantage the forms that they think would work for their unilateral success.” 100 This decision could have negative or positive implications in the democratic future of a country. “ The Albanian case, illustrates better this trend. Starting with 22 years of experience, through which have been held 8 rounds of parliamentary elections, almost all the final results are contested by the losing part and have not been evaluated by the international community, especially the OSCE / ODIHR as free and fair elections. 101 Exclusion makes the elections of 2013, where the final results were accepted by all the political parties. In all the contestations the electoral formula took the major “faults” of the problems and for these reasons it was under the pressure of continuous changes. The time for testing and improving was really short.

According to Sadik Haxhiu, ”the electoral system introduces a union of rights, principles, mechanisms and guarantees, in which it is realized the participation of the people in the elections.” 102 These actions translate the will of the people in parliamentary seats, and the majority of the will rules the minority, by respecting it. The Party that gains more votes, usually, wins the government and rules the country by implementing the winning program.

98 Ibid. p74-75. 99 Ibid. p.75. 100 ACE, supra note 63, Electoral Systems , Available at: http://aceproject.org/main/overview- albanian/sistemet-e-zgjedhjeve . 101 Comparative Study of Electoral Systems in the South-East Europe , (Kosovar Institute for Policy, Research and Development (KIPRED), 2011, p.4. 102 Sadik Haxhiu, “Electoral Systems in Countries with Stable Democracies” , (Kosova Press, December 2012). - 39 -

Some other scholars have described the electoral system as a tool for the selection of the elites of the country; by doing so, of a crucial importance is the democratization of the institutions of a country. For some other authors, the core principle of the elections is the right of the voters to express their free will. ” The will of the people should be expressed through periodic and fair elections which should be held in equal and general voting processes, secret ballots or with equivalent procedures of free voting.” 103 The political climate is important to be quiet and without incidents which will influence the voting process. The political parties should be mature and give alternatives, not just debating in empty lines.

The electoral system is composed by the formula which translates votes into parliamentary seats, it determines the way of voting and the right to vote, it spreads the parliamentary mandates as well as the responsibilities of the actors involed in the electoral process. ”Electoral systems are subject of the historical, political, cultural, religious and so on factors, which lead to different electoral methods. The easiest way to examine the electoral systems is their classification on the basis of translating votes into seats in parliament.” 104 As we have mentioned earlier, the selection of the electoral system has a direct impact in the expression or deformation of the political will of the voters.

On the other hand, there are scholars who defend the thesis that even in the communist regimes there are elections, based on the idea of indirect elections. With this system, the voters do not elect directly their representatives but do so indirectly. But as the Albanian cases showed, in the communist regime, the opposition parties and the other alternatives for voting, presented in the system, is an important factor in the electoral process. The process of the free will is conditioned by factors which influence the selection process.

After the 90’s the process of leaving communism and entering the democracy, faced two different mentalities. On one hand were the democratic forces which supported the proportional system, on the other hand were the communist forces which preferred the majority system. The Communists had consolidated tradition in the

103 Sadik Haxhiu, “Elections and Electoral Reforms in the Republic of Kosovo”, (Gazeta Telegraf, 11.06.2011). 104 Haxhiu, supra note 102. - 40 - electoral process, had well experienced party structures, as well as professionals who had gained high rank positions in the communist regime. ” In most of East European countries these two parties with different interests and aims bargained for a middle way, the mixed electoral system.” 105

Electoral system in some democratic countries

Further, in this chapter, I will describe the electoral systems in some well known democratic countries. They have historical background and well consolidated structures in applying the electoral systems. Starting with Great Britain, “ the electoral system is a plurality system where the country is divided in 659 electoral districts. It is an electoral system which has helped in the consolidation of the representative democracy where the struggle for power has become a truly political race.” 106 In Great Britain there are two major parties: the Labor Party and the Conservative Party. ”The goal for a party that wants to govern, is not to reach the greatest possible number of votes, but to come on top of as many areas as possible, and in more than half of them to secure an absolute majority.” 107 This majority will give the opportunity to create the government and govern the country.

The majority system gives more opportunities for a large representation of the main parties, and under represents the small parties. With this system, the governmental majorities are easily created, and the parliamentarian majorities are created even if the winning party does not get more than 50% of the votes. The fall and replacement of the government without ending the mandate is something very rare. The role of the opposition is very constructive in a way that it helps the debate by showing ideas, alternatives and opposing the majority alternatives. It works as a “shadow government”.

Unlike Great Britain, France has faced many political changes along the times, and after the World War II it changed the electoral system. The representative body in France is divided in two parts: the National Assembly and the Senate. The National Assembly is the lower chamber. The system used to elect the member of this Assembly is a two rounds system, with a single member in every district. Despite this, “ the number

105 Adri Nurellari, “A Good Electoral Reform,” (Panorama Newspaper, 3.3.2008). 106 Haxhiu, supra note 102. 107 Ibid. - 41 - of political parties has decreased since 1986, period when the proportional electoral system was applied.” 108 In the French electoral system of runoff, the positive side of it is the ability of the parties to create coalitions between the two rounds in order to gain as many seats as possible. In the second round, can compete up to five or six candidates; which is a difference if we compare to other majority electoral systems. In other countries that use the pure majority system, like Great Britain, USA and Canada, the electoral system makes it difficult for other parties (more than two) to join the party scene; in France the electoral system helps in creating a wider scale of political parties. This practice helps in making alliances between parties in the second round in order to gain votes and seats.

Germany, another European country, uses the parliamentary form of government. The whole power of the government is concentrated in the hands of the Chancellor (Prime Minister). In electing the government the proportional electoral system is used. “ The German parliamentary regime today is considered as one of the best and successful regimes in terms of separation and balance of the power which is necessary in a democratic country.” 109 Many other countries have copied the German model of the balance of power. It has a two chamber parliament: The Upper House (Bundesrat) and the Lower House (Bundestag). In 1949, they adopted a new electoral system, which exists still today. This system is called semi – proportional. Each voter has two votes. 1- The first one is for the candidate in each of 328 single – member districts. 2- The second vote is for the party. The second vote is more important because it decides which party will win the elections and govern the country. The semi – proportional system made possible the foundation of new parties and the lack of one party government. Nowadays, Germany faced the Grand Coalition government, in which one party did not have the right votes to create the government and as such, it was bound to enter into the negotiations with the opposition.

3.2 The electoral systems used in Albania After World War II Albania had collapsed economically and politically. The country was destroyed and it needed a deep reconstruction, starting with the economy.

108 Ibid. 109 Ibid. - 42 -

Politically, Albania was part of the East countries that embraced the communist doctrine, with ex- Yugoslavia, Soviet Union and China as its allies.

The law for electing the representatives after WWII in the Constitutional Assembly was approved in 1944. It stated the procedures, the way of voting, the ballot paper, the candidates, etc. ”Given the large degree of illiteracy in the adult population, it was predicted that the voting should be done through the gummy berry, thrown in separate boxes. Elections would be held in the electoral district and regions. The number of the people’s representative in the Assembly should be decided by the Central Election Commission by ratio: one representative for 12.000 inhabitants.” 110 The candidate lists would be national and the elections would be held based in this list of candidates, as well as with specific candidates. These candidates could be part of the candidate list or run as an independent candidate. The electoral system was majority and the candidate who won the majority of votes, was elected MP. At the same time, it was recognized women’s right to vote and the minimum age for the candidates was set to be no less than 18 years old. The law did not impose restrictions for candidates to represent different parties, but practically, the D emocratic Front, which was fully led by the Communist Party, did not give space for the creation of other political groups, it sanctioned a monist system, which brought in an inevitable totalitarian and repressive regime and did not allow elections to clearly show the public opinion.” 111 In reality, the candidates who ran outside the list of the Democratic Front did not win any seat in the National Council.

The National Council during the communist regime had drafted and approved several times the electoral law 112 , and several times had made some partial changes, but in all the cases everything was around the one party electoral system. In the elections the opposition parties, the rival parties, were absent. The only party which was allowed to submit a list of candidates was the Democratic Front. It was a clear segregation, because even though the participation in election was legally free, practically it had consequences if the turnout was low. The electoral system was a one round system, without opposite candidates and the voters voted directly for the candidate “that they

110 Ylli Bufi, “Temple of Democracy” , (Ombra GVG, 2010). 111 Ibid. 112 Law no. 1017, date, 20.01.1950, “On the National Assembly Elections” ; Law no. 2624, date 17.03.1958: “On the National Assembly Elections” ; Law no. 4121, date 17.03.1966, “On the National Assembly Elections.” - 43 - wanted”. ” The first and last elections where the registration of independent candidates was allowed were those of December 1945. In the last elections of the communist regime, held on 1 February 1987, the turnout was 100% and so was the voting for the only list of candidates, that of the Democratic Front.” 113 The National Assembly was composed of one chamber, of 250 MP, with 4 years mandate.

After these elections, the electoral law was changed in order to give more opportunities to the opposition groups. Even though, primarily, these groups were fictive, organized from the communist part in order to give the image of pluralistic changes, it was a historical decision.

The selection of the electoral system is an important decision for the future of the country. It influences the life of the people and has consequences for future generations. “However, the selection of an electoral system is rarely done consciously and deliberately. Often the selection is occasional, the result of unusual combination of circumstances, of a transitional period.” 114 The electoral system in Albania was selected according to the definition mentioned above. The political leaders, in selecting the system, were led from the interest of the moment and short term benefits.

Historically, “the first democratic elections for the National Assembly were held on March 31, 1991 under the majority system. The absolute majority of the Labor Party of Albania, which had ruled since 1944, was determined since the first round and became in 2/3 in the second round, as a winning party in these elections.” 115 The results showed a division between the rural and the urban areas of Albania. This was characterized by the lingered mentality of the past and the fear that existed in the country from the communist regime. The urban area, students and some political intellectuals supported the Democratic Party; the rural area, the cadres and the old people supported the Labor Party. In this legislature it was approved the law “On the elections for the National Assembly of the Republic of Albania”. In a short period of time, the electoral law, through the support of the foreign factor suffered changes. In the elections of 1992 it was approved another law which stated that “The National Assembly had to be composed from no less

113 Bufi, supra note 110. 114 ACE, supra note 63, Electoral Systems, Available at: http://aceproject.org/main/overview- albanian/sistemet-e-zgjedhjeve . 115 Afrim Krasniqi, “Elections in Albania 1991 – 2008” , (Konica Color, 2009), p. 35. - 44 - than 140MP, 100 elected according to the majority formula on bases of single named list for each party and 40 from the proportional representation.” 116 With this law the number of political parties which joined the campaign was 4-5, but still the support for the main parties was obvious. The elections were won by the Democratic Party and its allies, which gained more than 2/3 of the parliamentary seats. The same results were repeated even in the parliamentary elections of 1996. The earlier elections of 1997 did not bring any major change but the main parties (the DP and the reformed Socialist Party) changed their role. The SP got the power and the DP went in opposition.

In the elections of 2001, “ the Constitution established a specific “mixed” election system, with inter-related majority and proportional components, calling for the election of 100 MPs in single-member constituencies (“zones”) and 40 MPs in a nationwide constituency based on party or coalition lists. A second round of voting was required in single-member constituencies if no candidate received an absolute majority. Parties had to receive at least 2.5% of the valid votes nationwide and coalitions 4% in order to participate in the allocation of the 40 mandates.” 117 These elections were again won by the Socialist Party and the Democratic Party contested them. In these elections, through the “Dushk system”, the SP won 10 mandates more due to the tactical way of delegating the votes. The opposition parties complained the result and appealed it to the Constitutional Court and the Electoral College.

In the parliamentary elections of 2005, an Interim Report, prepared by the OSCE stated that the “Voter Lists remain a contentious issue. While some of the concerns expressed by interlocutors regarding what are essentially administrative errors, others involve family members split between two voting areas, omissions, possible multiple entries and a sizeable number of citizens whose residence could not be verified.” 118 The electoral system was the same as in the parliamentary elections of 2001. “In these conditions, two main parties in 2008 under the justification of the need for improvement of electoral system, based on the recommendations of the OSCE / ODIHR decided to change

116 Roland Lami, supra note 52, p.56. 117 OSCE/ODIHR Final Report, “Republic of Albania, Parliamentary Elections, 24 June – 19 August 2001”, (11 October 2001). 118 OSCE/ODIHR, INTERIM REPORT 1, 17–30 May 2005. - 45 - the electoral system from mixed into regional proportional.”119 These changes brought the idea of a regional proportional electoral system. This system was brought in order to end the earlier contestation of the election process. This process was full of contestations between the two parties neither of which accepted the final results, none of them accepted the responsibilities and blamed the other party, and the parties saw the elections as a way of profit. According to Kastriot Islami, known as one of the proposers of this electoral system, “ the goal was to find a system that fist better with the Albanian reality, and was in accordance, as in most cases this time as well, with the recommendations of the OSCE / ODIHR, which served as a guide for changes of the electoral code”. 120 This electoral system is still in use even nowadays. “Moreover, others say that the application of regional proportional system will show real support of the electorate to parties, even to the small parties. 121 The electorate should be based in regional division, in order that the smaller party wins a parliamentary seat. The two main parties, should definitely create coalitions with smaller parties; as well as the smaller parties could not be represented in the parliament if they do not create coalitions with the two main parties. “ In these conditions, the calculations of numbers and pragmatic movements blur the ideologies and the identities as a distinctive element of these parties. So, parties are forced to rationalize their actions considering the representation in parliament and in government despite their costs in the ideological plan.” 122 Before the elections, the increasing number of the political parties in the coalition is a crucial factor. The ideological plan takes a second role; as the collection of votes is the primary role. This goal became evident in the elections of 2009. There were two blocks: “The Alliance for Change”, led by the Democratic Party, composed by 17 party allies; and “United for Change”, led by the Socialist Party, composed by 5 party allies. In both sides we can find, moderate, conservative, left and right parties. "Ideological colors become irrelevant before securing majorities to govern. 123 " “This

119 Gramoz Ruci, “The Need for an Electoral Reform”, (Panorama, Newspaper Tiranë, 18 Prill 2008), p. 2. 120 Kastriot Islami, “The Electoral System Displays Weight of Parties”, (Panorama Newspaper, Tiranë, 3 Korrik 2009), p. 17. 121 Ermal Hasimja, “Phantom parties do not receive neither membership votes”, (Panorama Newspaper, Tiranë, (2 Maj 2008), p. 17. 122 Lami, supra note 52, fq. 60. 123 Paskal Milo, “Deformations of the Regional Proportional System” (Panorama Newspaper, Tiranë, 10 Tetor 2009), p. 3. - 46 - because the electoral formula dictates the needs for the participation of so many parties in order to gain each volatile vote of the political class.” 124

3.3 Electoral behavior

The electoral behavior is something new in the Albania’s road towards democracy. The behavior of the political parties and their candidates, as well as the behavior of some other factors like: history, society, voters, media, etc. is something new. According to Professor Afrim Krasniqi, “the distinctive features of the Albanian transition makes the difference with other models of the ex communist countries, and significantly differ with Western models of electoral behavior as well as with the analysis of the relationship between political actors and voters.” 125 The long period of transition of the country was reflected even in the changing of the electoral system and the electoral framework for each elections. For eight elections Albania has changed the electoral system six times by experiencing almost every system from the majority to the mixed one then to the proportional. Still being in Krasniqi, “he defends the thesis that the electoral behavior of the voters is still outlined by volatile electoral factors, typical for a young and still unconsolidated democracy, by reflecting the problematic level of the political culture, huge problems in applying the electoral systems and the relationship of interdependence of citizens from politics.” 126 The voters do not have a chance to choose between reliable alternatives; they mostly voted between two evils, the lesser evil. As a result, this is a vote against the political establishment and their leaders.

Albania of 90’ was far away from the models of democracy of other countries. It had suffered a sixty years of dictatorship and elimination of every oppositionist group. Albania was unique in its behavior. There is no other country in Southeast and Central Europe that could compare to Albania according to the communist regime that has been used. It was the wildest totalitarian regime ever. As I have shown in the previous chapters, “i n the communist system the state was the party, the constitution and the law was the decisions of the party, the ruler and the head of the state was the First Secretary of the LPA.” 127

124 Nard Ndoka, “The Destiny of so-called small parties” (Shqip Newspaper, 2009), 18 Tetor, f. 3. 125 Afrim Krasniqi, “Voting behavior: Who do Albanians vote for?” , (2012), fq.1. 126 Ibid. 127 Arshi Pipa: “Albanian Stalinism: ideo-political aspects” , (Princi, Tirane, 2010). - 47 -

The changes of the regime saw the changes of the political behavior. In this time many new parties were born, which struggled to gain as many votes as they could from the LPA which ruled the country for more than 46 years. On the other side, these parties left out the elements for an electoral race: “ ideological differences; differences in leadership; the need for a historic trial through votes; concept of separation of state from the party (still the LPA had official structure in every institutions, including the security organs: army, police, secret service, diplomacy or public medias), or the need for electoral equality.” 128 The two parts (ex LPA and the new founded Democrats) represented two different ideologies, but still not so divided with the past. “ An analysis of the results of the voting gives conclusions that the vote was black and white between two large parties, without any important role of candidates, slogans, political behavior or electoral programs.” 129 The vote was divided between the villages and the big cities, while the right wing gained votes in the big cities and the left wing gained votes in the villages. The elections of March 1992, saw a change of the positions, the DP won the majority of votes, with more than 1.2 millions. “ The voting of March 22 was not just a competing vote between two parties and their programs, it was a voting between two extreme systems, a popular referendum to change the political system, so, a massive vote against the previous system and LPA (SP) as the representative political force of the old system.” 130 The electoral behavior was marked by a black and white selection, without the implication of other foreign and internal factors. The change was necessary for all the parts of the system. The elections of 1996 were a sign of adding new elements of the electoral behavior. There were implemented the polls organized by western institutions and polls organized by the parties themselves. These elections were won by the Democratic Party despite the claims and appeals for irregularities by the Socialist Party. “Democrats based their campaign simultaneously in two directions:

- Denigrating rhetoric towards every offer of the left

- Their ability to set a positive balance of economic reforms.” 131

For the first time, in the Albanian electoral campaign, the western models of campaign were implemented, especially the American and the British one, with concerts, shows and representation of the candidates in front of a multitude of people. Due to the boycott of the

128 Krasniqi, supra note 115. 129 Ibid. 130 Krasniqi, supra note 125, p.3. 131 Ibid. - 48 - opposition, the elections lost their legitimacy. Still the electoral behavior was led from the interests of the day and the momentum opportunities to benefit as much as they could.

The early elections of 1997 brought a different way of electoral behavior. The brightness of the pyramid schemes made people believe that they would profit from these schemes. Voters of 26 May 1997 wanted a stable majority and they will keep preserving their profits through these pyramidal schemes. By knowing this fact, neither the DP nor the SP talked about the risks of failure of these schemes. Berisha, president at that time, was called the responsible person for the failure of these schemes and for the loss of the money of the majority of the people, lost the election; the SP won with a majority of votes.

The elections of 2001 did not bring something new to the electoral behavior. The SP won again the majority of the parliament and composed the government. The memories of 1997 still followed the Democratic Party. The internal political crisis of the SP reached its peak with the foundation of the SMI in 2004, when in the parliamentary elections of 2005, faced a defeat.

The elections of 2005 were the first elections where the party in government lost the power due to the split in two parts. While competing between them, the SP and the SMI, lost deputies and from this situation benefited the DP that won in at least 18 electoral districts.

2009 elections created the possibility for a better analysis of the political behavior. The society was more informed and rationalized in their voting. The relation between the voters and the political parties still remained strong. “ We are dealing with new electoral systems (proportional), new political situations (foundation of large coalitions with opposite ideological party and the absence of a dominant party in government), and for the first time the creation of independent profiles of a series of constitutional institutions, with an active role in decision making.” 132

The elections of 2013 were called as very important for the european future of Albania, as the country is closer to receive the status of the candidate country for joining EU. These elections were the cornerstone for the whole society, the political elite, the public and independent institutions to organize and promote free and fair elections. The behavior of all these actors will show the maturity of the society and the political leaders to take responsibility for the good governance of the country.

132 Ibid., p. 4. - 49 -

The selection process of the electoral system has a major role for the future of the country and sometimes it could even have a negative impact in its political developments.

- 50 -

4. The impact of electoral systems on party systems

The electoral process is a burden that should be held by the political parties and their officials. The democracy and the electoral systems cannot be understood without the existence and the function of the parties. Political parties are entities born on the same time as the state was born. Since their beginning they have struggled for power. “ In the political theory the representation and the function of the political parties is connected with the democracy, which are strongly related between them. The modern democracy has shown as its own element the idea of the popular sovereignty.” 133

“The basic idea that formal rules determine the political behavior is a well known approach in the literature of electoral systems and their function. The essence of this perspective is that formal rules produce a series of motives that format, organize and redesign the political behavior. The formal electoral rules include the legislative framework on elections, the constitutions, legal statutes, electoral codes and the whole administrative procedures authorized by law, whose guarantee is provided by the courts.” 134 These rules are changeable according to the political processes, through the legislation, review of the constitution or governmental decisions.

The rules on a political system influence the behavior of the political parties, losses and gains. These actors behave according to the electoral rules imposed by the electoral system, either proportional or majority “the magnitude of the electoral district, the type of the ballot paper and the use of gender quotas.” 135 They influence as well the structure of the political parties and their candidates. In a country where the proportional electoral system is used, with one electoral district, the behavior of third parties will be towards the representation of as many issues as possible. They should not be focused on some regional or local issue.

The aim of the candidates or the politicians is the maximization of votes and the rise of their popularity. The candidates are mostly ambitious people who want to achieve as much as they can in the hierarchy of the political parties. Usually, the elected

133 Arsim Bajrami, “Constitutional Right II”, (Prishtina, 1996). 134 Herbert P. Kitschelt, “Linkages between citizens and politicians in democratic politics” in (Comparative Political Studies Vol. 33 No.6/7, Sage Publications Inc. 2000), p. 845–879. 135 John M. Carey, and Matthew Soberg Shugart, “Incentives to cultivate a personal vote: A rank-ordering of electoral formulas” in (Electoral Studies, Vol.14, Elsevier Science Ltd., 1995). - 51 - candidates prefer more parliamentarian debates to be played outside the view of the public and the product shown to the latter to be something according to their preference. The public does not want a tense political climate. Different politicians show different ambitions. “ We can have politicians who emphasize the ideological purity rather than populist and inclusive mixed messages. We can see politicians who see their personal benefits by coming into power, just as we can find philanthropists who are much more attracted by the public good.” 136 Some of them want the social status that provides the post. Despite all these, the maximization of votes is the core goal of the candidates.

Still being on these assumptions, about the rules on a political system and the behavior of the candidates, another important hypothesis is that the electoral threshold influences the electoral campaign, what strategy they will use: “comprehensive strategy with low distinctness or incomprehensive strategy with a high distinction.” 137 The comprehensive strategy with low distinction tries to involve the political parties in a struggle for every vote. They try to involve every sector of the society and every social group, without making distinction about the groups that they mostly represent. These strategies are used in the majority electoral systems, because the level of threshold is high and the winner is determined by the largest number of votes received. “These parties aim to create large coalitions with ideological and social nature inside the electorate. Mainly the focuses of the electoral platforms of these parties are a series of cases that concern the majority of the public.” 138 Due to this, they are controversial in their nature, as an example, all the political parties in Albania want the European integration of Albania, even though, based on their political wing, they are opposed to it. This creates the possibility for all the groups to create alliances and struggling to represent the whole electorate. These alliances are fluid and not long term. “The parties that apply these strategies are mainly open political organizations, where the engagement criteria from the electoral side are simple and so simple is also the refusal of the engagement.” 139 The level of hierarchy is very low. According to Sartori’s division, these

136 Bruce E. Cain, John A. Ferejohn, and Morris P. Fiorina, “The Personal Vote: Constituency Service and Electoral Independence”. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987). 137 Pippa Norris, “The puzzle of constituency service” in (The Journal of Legislative Studies, Vol. 3(2), Routledge, 1997), p. 29–49. 138 Robert Rohrschneider, “Mobilizing versus chasing: How do parties target voters in election campaigns?” in (Electoral Studies, Vol. 21(3), 2002, p. 367–382. 139 Blendi Ceka, “The Relationship between Electoral Systems, Party System, and Electoral Behaviour in Albania” , (Universiteti i Tiranes, 2013), p. 25. - 52 - political parties have centripetal nature; they act in the direction towards the center of the political spectrum. They look to the center of this spectrum in order of creating alliances. “Political parties have centripetal nature in the society, as well as ideologically.” 140

Differently to the majority electoral systems, the proportional systems have a low threshold level. The political parties use the other strategy, that of an incomprehensive strategy of a high distinction. The political parties try to focus their agenda on specific sectors of the society. Their programs lead towards different social groups and have the target only on some specific areas. “These strategies address that part of the electorate that could be considered homogenous in some crucial aspects, like class, religion, ethnic identity, ideology, nationalism .” 141 They are focused in representing the interests of some members and special groups. Usually, these strategies have different platforms for different parties, without the need for including the wide spectrum. “In those countries where the proportional system is applied it has a centrifugal nature, where the political competition is spread in all the ideological spectrum and in the range of issues that characterize a particular socio - political context, and it is not concentrated around the center.” 142

Parties that use this strategy have a strongly tied membership, good and strong connections with its representative groups as well as linkage with different social classes of the society. Due to these connections, they are loyal to their voters and electorate; as well as their electorate is clearly identifiable.

Through this explanation, we give a panorama of the strategies that each party will use in accordance to the electoral system used, the level of threshold and the necessary behavior used by the candidates. The strategies used weaken or emphasize the social and party cleavages. “ According to this logic, the relation between the parties and the voters changes systematically according to the electoral threshold, or the majority, proportional or mixed electoral systems. 143 In most of the democratic systems, the politicians and political parties have the abilities to modify the electoral behavior of the

140 Ibid., p. 26. 141 Arend Lijphart, “Electoral Systems and Party Systems” . (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). 142 Bettina Scholdan , “Democratisation and electoral engineering in post-ethnic conflict societies” in (Javnost-The Public, Vol. 7(1), 2000), p. 25–40. 143 Ceka, supra note 139, p. 26-27. - 53 - masses. The risk of failure of importing the electoral systems from one country to another, without adapting it to the real conditions, to its tradition, its culture and what is more important, to the level of information that the society of that country has, is very high.

The Albanian case showed a lack of constituency on the level of parliamentary elections. In its eight electoral elections it has changed the electoral systems for six of them. Two of these were early elections (1991 and 1997), without giving the opportunity to the government to finish the whole 4 year mandate.

The elections of March 1991 The primary plurality elections of Albania were held in March 1991. The electoral system used in these elections was the majority system with two rounds; if any of the candidates did not win 50% + 1 of the votes, than the two candidates that had the higher results, would go in the second round. In this round, winner was called the candidate who had the majority of the votes. According to the electoral system used, the country was divided into 250 electoral districts. In the first round were spread 242 seats while the rest was spread in the second round. “In the voting for the National Assembly took part 1.963.568 voters or 98.92 % of the registered voters.” 144 The level of threshold in these elections was 0%. Table 3. Results of 1991 elections No. Parties Percentage of votes Number of mandates 1 Labor Party of Albania 56.17% 169 2 Democratic Party 38.71% 75 3 Omonia Party 0.73% 5 4 Comity of Veterans 0.28% 1

As we see from the results, the Labor Party of Albania has won the majority of the votes and the majority of the seats in parliament. The majority system has helped this party to win the power, because the other parties were new parties and unknown in the electorate.

144 Ibid., pg. 46. - 54 -

The elections of March 1992 The second pluralistic elections of Albania were held in March 1992. These were the first earlier elections of Albania. According to the Law no. 7556, date 04.02.1992, “On the Elections for the National Council of the Republic of Albania” “The National Council is composed by not less than 140MPs, from which 100 are elected directly on single member districts, while the additional mandates are given to the candidates that are on the lists nationwide, according to the proportion of the votes won in the first round.” 145 The electoral system used in these elections was mixed dependent, where 100 seats were spread through the majority system and the other 40 through pure proportionality 146 . In the elections of 1992, the level of threshold was 4%. Table 4: The results of the elections of 1992 147 No Parties Number of mandates

1 Democratic Party 92 2 Socialist Party 38 3 Social Democrat Party 7 4 Human Rights Union Party 2 5 Republican Party 1

These elections were won by the Democratic Party, due to the spread of the base of the calculation of votes; this party had its electorate spread in the whole country. With the changes of this law we see two major changes: the number of the MPs decreased, it was not 250 like in the previous elections but it was 140. The other change was that the electoral system was not anymore a pure majority but was changed into a mixed one.

145 Law on the Elections for the National Council of the Republic of Albania no. 7556, date 04.02.1992 146 Article 11, Additional seats are distributed as follows: a) It is calculated the percentage of votes received in the first round of elections in single-member districts by each entity through its candidates nationwide. b) Each entity receives a number of seats from its multi-members list, so that the total number of seats in Parliament is equal to the number of seats that belong to it, based on the percentage won and that the number of deputies is the lowest possible. The determination of the winners of the multi-members list is made according to their order in the list. From this list benefit only entities that have no less than 4 percent on the votes nationwide. 147 Press release of the Central Election Commission for the finalization of election of 22 March 1992 for the election of deputies for the 13 th Legislature of the National Assembly, 14/07/1992. - 55 -

The elections of 1996 The elections of 1996 were held after the ending of the 4 years full mandate of governance of the Democratic Party. The electoral system applied in these elections was mixed, like in 1992, but the proportional part was not dependent. So, both parts of the systems worked independently from each other. According to the Law no. 8055, date 1.02.1996, “For some changes on the Law on the Elections for the National Council of the Republic of Albania”, no. 7556, date 04.02.1992, Article 3: “The National Council is composed of 140MPs, from which 115 are elected directly in single member districts, while 25 other mandates are given to the candidates that are on the nationwide lists of candidates, based on the votes won in the first round, according to the rule described in the Article 6” 148 Even in these elections, the electoral system was changed from a mixed dependent system into an independent one. Another change was the majority part, by broadening the majority dimension of the system, comparing to the elections of 1992, from 100MPs into 115MPs. In this law, were also made some changes for the second round of the system: “In case where three or more candidates have equal number of votes in the first round, then the two candidates that will take part in the second round will be assigned by lottery.” 149 Another important change, that this law brought, was about the electoral threshold to gain seats from the proportional side of the system. The level of threshold for political parties remained the same as in 1992, 4%, while they imposed 8% or more for the coalitions. The level of threshold for the coalitions was depended on the subjects in the coalition. These three changes, the increase of the number of selecting the MPs from the majority part, the elimination of the corrections that made possible the proportional part and establishing a high level of electoral threshold, clearly show a tendency of the compilers of this law for the elimination of smaller parties and giving priorities to the large parties.

148 Law no. 8055, “For some changes on the Law on the Elections for the National Assembly of the Republic of Albania no. 7556, date 04.02.1992”, date 1.02.1996. 149 Ibid., p. 42, Article 4. - 56 -

Table 5: The results of elections of 1996 150 : No. Parties Number of mandates

1 Democratic Party 122 2 Socialist Party 10 3 Party of Union for Human Rights 3 4 Republican Party 3 5 National Front Party 2

Even in this case, the Democratic Party could be considered as a winning majority because the Democratic Party had won the majority of the votes and as a result the majority of the seats in parliament.

The elections of 1997 The elections of 1997 were developed in a tense political, economical and social climate. The country was under a “civil war” with armed men who blamed the democratic government for the collapse of the pyramid schemes. It is important to point that the law on Elections approved by the National Council has faced changes by the Constitutional Court. The electoral law for Elections in the Republic of Albania, approved by the National Council emphasizes that “the National Council is composed by 155 MPs, from which 115 are elected directly on single member districts, while the other 40 mandates are spread to the nationwide candidates of the party lists.” 151 By analyzing these changes, we notice that the number of the MPs was increased from 140 in 1996, to 155 in 1997. From these 155 MPs, the number of the deputies elected by the two rounds majority electoral systems remained the same as in 1996, 115; meanwhile the other 40 seats were spread through the proportional formula. “Another important change in the elections of 1997 was the change of the level of threshold from 4% for the political subject to 2%. Equally, was changed even the formula

150 Press Release of the Central Election Commission for the final results of the election of deputies of the National Assembly of Albania, (Press release no.1, Official Bulletin, no. 21, 1996), p. 798. 151 Law no. 8218, date 16.05.1997, “For some Changes of the law no. 7556, date 4.02.1992, “On Electoral Elections of the National Assembly of Albania, changed with Law no. 8143, date 11.09.1996”, (Official Bulletin no. 6, 1997), p. 105 , Article 3. - 57 - of spreading the additional mandates where the two subjects with higher results from the majority side could profit from the proportional side only 10 MPs both.” 152 The rest, were spread in the other political subject according to the votes that they had received. All these tendencies, speak for a softening of the majority side of electoral systems and giving opportunities to small parties to gain seats and be represented in the parliament. Table 6: The results of elections of 1997 153 No. Parties Number of mandates 1 Socialist Party 100 2 Democratic Party 27 3 Social Democrat Party 9 4 Party of Union for Human Rights 4 5 Independent 3 6 Democratic Alliance 2 7 Legality Movement 2 8 Republican Party 2 9 National Front Party 1 10 Agrarian Party 1 11 Demo Christian Party 1 12 National Unity Party 1

By looking to the final results in the table and comparing with the final results of the elections of 1996, we see a significant improvement for the small parties. They have gained more seats and are more represented in the legislature of 1997, even though the situation in the country has given an absolute victory to the Socialist Party.

The elections of June 2001 The electoral system used in this election was mixed dependent. According to the law on the elections, the National Assembly was composed by 140 MPs. From them, 100

152 Ceka, supra note 139, p. 54. 153 Central Election Commission, “The results of elections of 1997 for the political entities nationwide”, 1997. - 58 - were directly elected through the majority formula and 40 from the proportional one. These mandates are not spread for “parties that have won less than 2.5% and coalitions that have won less than 4% nationwide in the first round of elections do not profit additional mandates.” 154 In this law was described the way of spreading the additional mandates, based in the letter “b” of Article 66, “reduced by the number of seats won by each party or coalition in a nominal area. If the difference was negative or zero, the party or coalition held only mandates won by a nominal area.” 155

Table 7: The results of the elections of 2001 156 No Parties Number of mandates 1 Socialist Party 73 2 Union of Victory Alliance 46 3 Democrat Party 6 4 Social Democrat Party 4 5 Democratic Alliance 3 6 Human Rights Union Party 3 7 Agrarian Party 3 8 Independent 2

The final results show that the winning party has won just 41.04% of the total votes without reaching 50%. Despite this, the Socialist Party won the mandate to govern the country for the upcoming 4 years term.“However, the election process was protracted, litigious, uncertain and fragmented.” 157

The elections of 2005 The electoral system used in these elections was again mixed dependent but on the contrary with that of 2001, the majority part used the minimum majority formula. Even in these elections the level of threshold was the same as in 2001, 2.5% for the

154 Law no. 8609, “Electoral Code of the Republic of Albania”, 08.05.2000. 155 Ibid. 156 Ceka, supra note 139, p. 58. 157 Republic of Albania, Parliamentary Elections, 24 June – 19 August 2001, OSCE / ODIHR Final Report, 11 October 2001, p. 1. - 59 - political parties and 4% for the coalitions. For effect of the electoral elections, the territory of the Republic of Albania was divided into 100 electoral districts with almost equal number of voters. This was applicable only for 100 mandates of the majority part of the electoral system. According to the Article 66 of this law, “1- It is elected in the National Assembly in single member districts the candidate that has won the highest number of valid votes that has taken part in that electoral district; 2- In case when two or more candidates obtain equal number of votes, so between the candidates is organized the lottery. CEC determines the rules of the organization of the lottery.” 158 In this electoral code it was also stressed the concept of the mixed coalition and the appearance of the party lists which was mostly used in the general elections of 2009. Table 8: The results of the elections of 2005 159 No Parties Number of mandates

1 Democratic Party 56 2 Socialist Party of Albania 42 3 Republican Party 11 4 Social Democrat Party 7 5 Socialist Movement for Integration 5 6 Environmentalist Agrarian Party 4 7 New Democracy Party 4 8 Democratic Alliance 3 9 Human Rights Union Party 2

10 Christian Democracy Union 2 11 Social Democracy Party 2 12 Liberal Democrat Union 1

The Democratic Party and its allies had won the power without winning the majority of the votes (33.83%) and having only 12.83% of the parliamentary seats.

158 Electoral Code of the Republic of Albania, (Approved with law no.9087, date 19.6.2003 and changed with law no. 9297, date 21.10.2004, law no. 9341, date 10.1.2005 and law no.. 9371, date 14.4.2005). 159 Diana Estrefi, “Legislature XVII, 2005 – 2009”, (Republic of Albania, National Assembly, MANUAL, Tirana, 2007), p. 12. - 60 -

“Non-parliamentary parties did not have the right to receive copies of official results protocols from ZECs” 160

The elections of 2009 Like the previous elections, even in these electoral elections the electoral system was changed. The electoral system used in Albania for the elections of 28 June 2009 was regional proportional with closed party lists. The Electoral Code of the Republic of Albania stresses that the translation of votes into parliamentary seats is done through two electoral formulas: “the D’ Hondt formula is used for allocating the seats among the coalitions competing in the elections and Sainte- Lague is used for the allocation of seats within the coalition. From the votes casted for all the coalitions that participate in elections, the general seats for each coalition are spread through the D’Hondt formula. Meanwhile, after this division, the votes gained in one coalitions are spread within the coalition and then calculated through the Sainte – Lague formula. “The new electoral system introduced a threshold of 3% for single parties and 5% for coalitions at the constituency level. That threshold has been widely criticized because of the obstacle that it presents to smaller parties.” 161

Another important change that brought the new electoral code was the representation of women in the politics. “The electoral system, together with the electoral code brought other innovations, one of which was that 30% of the number of candidates of each political force of the list of candidates must be composed by women.” 162 Or differently said, one in three candidates must be women. Primarily, the SP failed to accomplish this criterion, but later on they arranged it. As a result of the changes in the electoral code, “ 23 women were elected to the Parliament, compared to ten in 2005, an increase from 7.1 per cent of members to 16.4 per cent. The order of placement of women candidates on the lists influenced their success.” 163

160 Republic of Albania, Parliamentary Elections, 3 July 2005, OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission Report, pg. 6. 161 Fisnik Korenica and Dren Doli, “The 2009 Parliamentary Election in Albania” , in (Electoral Studies, Special Symposium on Electoral Democracy in the European Union, Vol 30 (1), 2011), p. 224. 162 Nazim Rashidi, “Proportional system brings innovation”, 2009. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/albanian/news/2009/06/090628_albelex_votingsystem.shtml . 163 Republic of Albania, Parliamentary Elections, 28 June 2009 OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission Final Report, pg. 19. - 61 -

A major change was also the division of the country into 12 electoral districts. In the table below is the territorial division of Albania between 12 administrative regions according to the electoral code. The overall number of the Albanian citizens is divided with the number of the parliamentary mandates, 140 and the result is 30 thousand citizens for one mandate. Then, the number of the citizens in one of twelve electoral districts is divided with 30 thousand; the result is the number of mandates for every electoral district. Through this division, the Central Albania will have almost the half number of all mandates. The biggest struggle for parliamentary mandates will be done for Tirana region due to the highest number of the seats, 32.

Table 9: Electoral district division for the elections of 2009 164

Number of No. Electoral zones mandates 1 Kukes region 4 2 Gjirokaster region 5 3 Diber region 6 4 Lezha region 7 5 Berat region 8 6 Shkodra region 11 7 Korca region 12 8 Vlora region 12 9 Durres region 13 10 Elbasan region 14 11 Fier region 16 12 Tirana region 32 Parliament of Total Albania 140

Due to these changes, the number of voters, the number of deputies and the level of threshold varies according to the electoral districts. In populated areas the level of threshold is low and in the areas where the population is less the level of threshold is high.

In these elections, the voters are not called to vote for their preferred candidates, but for the political parties. The party lists are decided by the party officials and the

164 Ceka, supra note 139, p.63-64. - 62 - voters should circle only their preferred party, even though they might not like the candidates.

The agreement for changing the electoral code between the two main parties, the DP and SP, influenced even the Central Election Commission. Till then, it has been an independent institution but with the latest changes, it became a bipartisan commission in which only the SP and DP has the right to take decisions. The other small parties have observers.

All these changes have their effect on the final results of the elections. This was clearly obvious in the difference of votes and mandates between the two main parties and the small parties. The results are shown below.

Table 10: The results of the elections of 2009 165

No. Parties Percentage of Number of mandates votes 1 Democratic Party 40.18% 68 2 Socialist Party of Albania 40.85% 65 3 Socialist Movement for Integration 4.85% 4 4 Human Rights Union Party 1.19% 1

5 Party for Justice, Integration and Unity 0.95% 1 6 Republican Party of Albania 2.11% 1

Mostly, the Albanian electorate is divided between the two poles of the country, North and South. According to the electoral map the Democratic Party has won the majority of votes in the Northern part of the country; while the Socialist Party has won the majority of votes in the Southern Part of the country.

The elections of 2013

The elections of 23 June 2013 were a reflection of the elections of 2009. The electoral system used was the same as 2009; that is why this was the first electoral process when the electoral system was not changed. “ The 140-member unicameral

165 The elections for the National Assembly of the Republic of Albania, 2009, Approved with CEC Decision No.602, date 01.08.2009, The last results of the elections nationwide, Central Election Commission. - 63 -

Assembly (parliament) is elected for a four-year term under a regional proportional system within 12 multi-member electoral districts that correspond to the country’s administrative regions or counties. Political parties, coalitions and independent candidates could contest the elections, with closed candidate lists submitted by parties for each district. Parties that receive at least three per cent and coalitions that receive at least five per cent of valid votes in a district qualify for seat allocation.” 166 Regarding, the final results, these elections were won by the Socialist Party and its coalition with a huge majority.

Table 11: The results of the elections of 2013

No. Parties Percentage of Number of votes mandates 1 Socialist Party of Albania 41.12% 66 2 Democratic Party 30.41% 49 3 Socialist Movement for Integration 10.44% 16 4 Party for Justice, Integration and Unity 2.59% 4 5 Republican Party of Albania 3.04% 3 6 Human Rights Union Party 0.83% 1

7 Christian Democratic Party 0.47% 1

In a superficial survey of the above data we can say that the Socialist Party and its coalition has won a number of members of the parliament that could approve every law in the parliament, without the need of the consensus of the opposition parties, based on the number of 84 votes needed for the approval of the law with super majority.

166 Republic of Albania, Parliamentary Elections, 23 June 2013, OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission, Final Report, pg. 5. - 64 -

Table 12: Electoral systems 1991-2013

Year Number of Electoral System Allocation of Threshold Coalitions Seats Seats Threshold

1991 250 Majority 250 M 0 0

1992 140 Mixed (Proportional-Majoritarian) 100 M + 40 P 4 8

1996 140 Mixed (Proportional-Majoritarian) 115 M + 25 P 4 8

1997 155 Mixed (Proportional-Majoritarian) 115 M + 40 P 2 2

2001 140 Mixed (Proportional-Majoritarian) 100 M + 40 P 2.5 4

2005 140 Mixed (Proportional-Majoritarian) 100 M + 40 P 2.5 4

2009 140 Proportional Regional 140 P 3 0

2013 140 Proportional Regional 140 P 3 0

As previously mentioned, the selection process of the electoral system plays a major role for the future of the country and sometimes it could even have negative impact in its political developments. The history of its selection could be as much important as the electoral system itself. “ In reality, handling of political advantage is almost always a factor in the selection of the electoral systems - sometimes it is the only consideration.” 167 The short term political calculations could hide the successes of one or another electoral system. The political leaders are led from this goal to maximize their profit. “Electoral systems are generally considered to have both ‘mechanical’ and ‘psychological’ effects. The mechanical impact is most apparent in the way different electoral systems tend to encourage different kinds of party system.” 168 The plurality / majority electoral systems have a direct impact on the creation and foundation of new parties; while the proportional system is more “liberal” in a way that the creation of new parties is easier.

To analyze the mechanical effects on the Albanian party systems I will try to elaborate Pipa Norris levels.

167 ACE, supra note 63, Electoral Systems. Available at: http://aceproject.org/main/overview-albanian/sistemet-e-zgjedhjeve . 168 Ibid. - 65 -

But on the other hand, the electoral systems have their psychological effects. The electoral systems could influence the rational choice of the voters by giving opportunities for the creation of new parties or not, being impossible of gaining seats the small parties could merge with the large ones or could withdraw from the electoral competition, or the electorate could vote tactically for the large parties due to the idea that the vote casted for small parties is a vote wasted vote. The electoral system may give priority or punish the small parties.

As I have said above, one of the most direct effects of the mechanical effect is the one on party systems, especially on the effective number of parties. As an instrument for measuring its effects I will use the logic used by Pippa Norris in which she uses three different levels:

1- “The number of the parliamentary parties (parties that have won at least one parliamentary mandate).

2- Number of all parties with parliamentary significance (all parties that have gained over 3% of seats in parliament.

3- Effective number of parties (calculated through Laakso and Taagepera method)” 169

According to this model, I will apply the final results that I have described above and then observe the final outcomes. What will be their result on our analysis about the effects of the electoral systems on the party systems?

For the elections of 1991 the results are:

The number of the parliamentary parties (parties that have won at least one parliamentary mandate)

The number of parties that won at least one parliamentary mandate is four, the Labor Party of Albania, the Democratic Party, Omonia Party and the Comity of Veterans. The number of seats in the parliament was 250.

Number of all parties with parliamentary significance (all parties have gained over 3% of seats in parliament).

169 Ceka, supra note 139, p. 85. - 66 -

The number of parties that gained at least 3% of the seats in parliament was two, the Labor Party of Albania with 60% and the Democratic Party with 30%. The other parties won less than 3%.

Effective number of parties (calculated through Laakso and Taagepera method)

This method is used by Laakso and Taagepera, the basic idea of this method is not just the counting of the political parties but also their weight on the electorate. Through this system, for the parliamentary elections of 1991 we will have the following results.

Table 13: Effective number of parties (calculated through Laakso and Taagepera method), 1991

No. Political Proportion in Proportion Sum of Number of Subject Mandates squared proportion parties on party squared system 1 Labor Party 0.676 0.456 2 Democratic 0.3 0.09 Party 3 Omonia Party 0.02 0.004 0.55 1.81 4 Comity of 0.004 0.000016 Veterans

In the first level of measurement by Pippa Norris we have four parties that have won at least one parliamentary mandate; in the second level we have two parties and in the third level we have 1.81 political parties.

For elections of 1992 the results are:

The number of the parliamentary parties (parties that have won at least one parliamentary mandate)

The parties that have won at least one parliamentary mandate, are five, consisting of the Socialist Party, the Democratic Party, the Social Democrat Party, the Human Rights Union Party and the Republican Party.

Number of all parties with parliamentary significance (all parties have gained over 3% of seats in parliament)

- 67 -

Number of parties with parliamentary significance that gained over 3% of seats in parliament were three political parties, the Democratic Party, the Socialist Party and the Social Democrat Party.

Table 14: Effective number of parties (calculated through Laakso and Taagepera method), 1992 zNo. Political Proportion in Proportion Sum of Number of Subject Mandates squared proportion parties on party squared system 1 Socialist 0.2 71 0. 073 Party 2 Democratic 0. 657 0. 431 Party 3 Social 0.0 5 0.0 025 Democrat 0.506 1.97 Party 4 Human 0.0 14 0.000 1 Rights Union Party 5 Republican 0.0 071 0.000 05 Party

In the first level of measurement by Pippa Norris we have five parties that won at least one parliamentary mandate; in the second level we have three parties and in the third level we have 1.97 political parties.

For elections of 1996 the results are:

The number of the parliamentary parties (parties that have won at least one parliamentary mandate)

The elections of 1996 were almost the same as the elections of 1992 according to the first level of measurement. The number of parties that gained at least one parliamentary seat was five, consisting of the Socialist Party, the Democratic Party, and the Human Rights Union Party, the National Front Party and the Republican Party.

Number of all parties with parliamentary significance (all parties have gained over 3% of seats in parliament)

The number of parties that have gained at least 3% of the parliamentary seats in this election was two, the Democratic Party and the Socialist Party. They have gained more than 80% of the parliamentary seats and this created a tense parliamentary life.

- 68 -

Table 15: Effective number of parties (calculated through Laakso and Taagepera method), 1996

No. Political Proportion in Proportion Sum of Number of Subject Mandates squared proportion parties on party squared system 1 Socialist 0. 071 0.0 05 Party 2 Dem ocratic 0. 871 0. 758 Party 3 National 0.0142 0.00 02 Front Party 4 Party of 0.0 214 0.0 0045 0.764 1.30 Union for Human Rights 5 Republican 0.0214 0.00044 Party

According to this measurement the first level brought five political parties, the second level brought two political parties and the last level brought the number 1.30.

For elections of 1997 the results are:

The number of the parliamentary parties (parties that have won at least one parliamentary mandate)

Elections of 1997 were held under a tense political and social climate. The country was under a civil war with the governmental institutions out of order and not functioning. In these elections, the parties that have gained at least one parliamentary mandate were twelve, the Socialist Party, the Democratic Party, the Democratic Alliance, and Human Rights Union Party, the National Front Party, the Agrarian Party, the Demo Christian Party, the Legality Movement, the Republican Party, the Social Democrat Party, the National Unity Party and the United Right.

Number of all parties with parliamentary significance (all parties gained over 3% of seats in parliament)

Not all of the above mentioned parties have been significant in the parliamentary life. Most of them, did not take at least 3% of seats in parliament. The number of parties that passed this level was three parties, consisting of the Socialist Party, the Democratic Party and the Social Democrats.

- 69 -

Table 16: Effective number of parties (calculated through Laakso and Taagepera method), 1997

No. Parties Proportion in Proportion Sum of Number of Mandates squared proportion parties on squared party system 1 Socialist Party 0. 64 0. 409 2 Democratic Party 0. 17 0.0 02 3 Democratic 0.012 0.0001 Alliance 4 Human Rights 0.025 0.000 6 Union Party 5 National Front 0.0064 0.00004 0.432 2.31 Party 6 Agrarian Party 0.0064 0.00004 7 Demo Christian 0.0064 0.00004 Party 8 Legality Movement 0.012 0.0001 9 Republican Party 0.012 0.0001 10 Social Democrat 0.05 0.0025 Party 11 National Unity 0.0064 0.00004 Party 12 United Right 0.012 0.0001

These increased numbers of political parties measured in the three levels demonstrate the proportional trends of the electoral system imposed in these elections.

For elections of 2001 the results are: The number of the parliamentary parties (parties that have won at least one parliamentary mandate)

- 70 -

The number of parties that won at least one parliamentary mandate was six, including one coalition, the Socialist Party, the Union of Victory Alliance, the Democratic Alliance, the Human Rights Union Party, the Agrarian Party, the Social Democrat Party, and the Democrat Party.

Number of all parties with parliamentary significance (all parties have gained over 3% of seats in parliament) The number of parties and the coalition that gained at least 3% of seats in parliament is three, the Socialist Party, the Union of Victory Alliance and Democrat Party.

Table 17: Effective number of parties (calculated through Laakso and Taagepera method), 2001

No Parties Proportion Proportion Sum of Number of in Mandates squared proportion parties on . squared party system 1 Socialist Party 0.521 0. 27

2 Union of Victory Alliance 0.3 28 0.1 0 3 Democratic Alliance 0.02 1 0.000 4

4 Party of Union for Human 0.0 21 0.000 4 0.373 2.7 Rights 5 Agrarian Party 0.02 1 0.000 4 6 Social Democrat Party 0.028 0.0007 7 Democrat Party 0.042 0.0017

The number of parties in the first level of measurement is seven, in the second level the number of parties decreased into three parties and the last level brings 2.7 parliamentary parties.

For elections of 2005 the results are:

The number of the parliamentary parties (parties that have won at least one parliamentary mandate)

- 71 -

This number in the elections of 2005 was twelve, the Socialist Party, the Democratic Party, the Human Rights Union Party, the Environmentalist Agrarian Party, the Social Democrat Party, the Socialist Movement for Integration, the Democratic Alliance, the Social Democracy Party, the New Democratic Party, the Demo Christian Party and the Liberal Democrat Union.

Number of all parties with parliamentary significance (all parties have gained over 3% of seats in parliament) The parties and the alliance that have won more than 3% of the parliamentary seats are five: the Socialist Party of Albania, the Democratic Party, Republican Party, Social Democratic Party and Socialist Movement for Integration.

Table 18: Effective number of parties (calculated through Laakso and Taagepera method), 2005 No. Parties Proportion in Proportion Sum of Number of Mandates squared proportion parties on party squared system 1 Republican Party 0.078 0.006

2 Socialist Party of Albania 0. 3 0.0 9 3 Democratic Party 0. 4 0.0 16

4 Human Rights Union Party 0.014 0.00 01

5 Environmentalist Agrarian Party 0.028 0.00 07

6 Social Democrat Party 0.05 0.0025 0.284 3.5 7 Socialist Movement for 0.035 0.001 Integration 8 Democratic Alliance 0.021 0.0004 9 Demo Christian Party 0.014 0.0001 10 New Democratic Party 0.028 0.0007 11 Social Democracy Party 0.014 0.0001 12 Liberal Democrat Union 0.0071 0.00005 The number of parties in first level is twelve in the second level is five and the number of parliamentary parties in the third level is 3.5.

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For elections of 2009 the results are: The number of the parliamentary parties (parties that have won at least one parliamentary mandate) The number of parties that won at least one parliamentary seat in these elections was six, the Socialist Party, the Democratic Party, the Human Rights Union Party, Party for Justice, Integration and Unity, the Socialist Movement for Integration and the Republican Party of Albania.

Number of all parties with parliamentary significance (all parties have gained over 3% of seats in parliament) The number of parties that have gained at least 3% of the parliamentary seats is two, the Socialist Party and the Democratic Party. The other four parties did not reach the level of 3%.

Table 19: Effective number of parties (calculated through Laakso and Taagepera method), 2009

Nr Parties Proportion Proportion Sum of Number of in Mandates squared proportion parties on squared party system 1 Socialist Party of Albania 0. 464 0. 215

2 Democratic Party 0.4 85 0.235 3 Party of Union for Human 0. 0071 0.00 005

Rights

4 Party for Justice, Integration 0.00 71 0.00005 0.45 2.22 and Unity 5 Socialist Movement for 0.0 2 0.00 04 Integration 6 Republican Party of Albania 0.0071 0.00005

The number of political parties in the first level is six, in the second level the number of parties is two and the number of parties in the third level is 2.22.

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For elections of 2013 the results are: The number of the parliamentary parties (parties that have won at least one parliamentary mandate) The number of parties that have won at least one parliamentary mandate in the election of 2013 was seven, the Socialist Party, the Democratic Party, the Human Rights Union Party, Party for Justice, Integration and Unity, the Socialist Movement for Integration, the Republican Party of Albania and the Christian Democratic Party.

Number of all parties with parliamentary significance (all parties have gained over 3% of seats in parliament) The number of parties that gained at least 3% of seats in parliament is three, the Socialist Party, the Democratic Party and the Socialist Movement for Integration.

Table 20: Effective number of parties (calculated through Laakso and Taagepera method), 2013 No. Parties Proportion Proportion Sum of Number of in Mandates squared proportion parties on squared party system 1 Socialist Party of Albania 0.4 7 0. 220

2 Democratic Party 0.3 5 0. 122 3 Human Rights Union Party 0.00 7 0.0000 5

4 Party for Justice, Integration 0.0 28 0.000 7

and Unity 0.355 2.8

5 Socialist Movement for 0.1 1 0.0 12 Integration 6 Republican Party of Albania 0.02 0.0004 7 Christian Democratic Party 0.007 0.00005

The number of parties in the first level in the lections of 2013 is seven, in the second level is three and in the third level the number of parties is 2.8.

After the analysis made to all the electoral processes in Albania since 1991, I will further develop the results of this analysis by focusing on the primary idea of this diploma thesis, the effects of the electoral systems on the party systems.

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What is observed from the three levels of measurement it is the trend that the majority electoral systems decrease the number of the political parties and the proportional systems increase this number. In the Albanian case this trend did not happen in the elections of 1997 and 2005 due to the conditional circumstances, such as the pyramidal schemes and the tactical voting. In all the parliamentary elections the weight of the two large parties of Albania is significant. They have interpreted the electoral systems by trying to maximize their interests and the interest of a closer group of people. The relationship with the other small parties is a relation based on dependency. According to the electoral system used, it is determined the relationship with the small parties and the strategy of the large parties. In cases when the electoral system does not give space for the creation of large coalitions, the large parties attempt to deviate the votes to the smaller parties (in cases of a proportional system) in order of gaining as many seats as it is possible. These were the elections of 2001 and 2005. The opposite happened in the elections of 2009 when the electoral system left space for creation of large coalitions, the large parties built strategies to compete the small parties in order of gaining seats for themselves. In almost all the electoral processes the majority part was present in the electoral systems. This has influenced even the choices of the electorate by pointing the psychological effects of the electoral systems. Through this effect, the electorate weights their votes and in the majority part does not spread them. They prefer more to vote a large party, even though it is not their primary preference, rather than to vote a candidate whom chances for winning are minimal. Even in the mixed dependent electoral system the struggle for the small parties is very hard. They compete in the proportional part with the large parties in order of gaining seats. On the mixed independent systems the situation is softer and the struggle is not hard. Usually, the electoral code prevents the large parties to gain seats after fulfilling the number of seats from the majority part. Mostly, the parties that remain outside the coalitions are punished by the electoral system. This is the case of 2005 and 2009 of the Movement for National Development and the Socialist Movement for Integration party in which the tactical voting for the party allies and the electoral calculations had negative consequences in their final results.

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In almost all the cases the small parties have their electorate spread throughout the country and not concentrated in some parts; this is a huge minus for them in a struggle against the large parties.

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5. Concluding remarks

“Albania is a country with the least stable electoral system. Each option held by different rules than the previous one, while not a "cosmetic" interventions in the plane of the connection, or the removal of one deputy. ”170 It is part of the multi party systems but with a clear tendency towards the two party systems. It has well organized parties, with experienced structure and with a high membership. After the fall of communism, Albania embraced the democratic changes and on this side, even the electoral system faced many changes. It has used many electoral systems, beginning with the pure majority in the elections of 1991, moving to the mixed systems from 1992 till 2005, then with the proportional as it is nowadays. All the systems have produced different results, but the main outcome was the prevalence of the large parties, the DP and SP. The research question used in this diploma thesis is: What impact had different electoral systems on party system of Albania in the period 1991 - 2014. What we observe from the tables and the results is the tendency for the dominance of the two large parties. Their dominance was preserved in every elections and more than the effect of the electoral system in the party system, is the rational choice of the first from the large parties by making possible their narrow profit. All the changes in the Electoral Code are done with the approval of the two large parties. Almost all the electoral systems used in Albania have the majority character by giving few opportunities for small parties to be developed and gain seats in the parliament. The strong dominance of the large parties was reflected even in the selection of the majority character of the electoral system. According to the level of threshold, Albanian is part of the countries that impose a normal level of threshold for parties and for the coalitions, but without penalizing the minorities or other special groups. The level of threshold is around 3% nationwide for parties and 5% for the coalitions. An influence concerning the selection of the electoral system in Albania has also played the foreign factor. As I have earlier mentioned, the foreign factor has influenced the political elite by recommending general things and not précising the exact problems of the system.

170 Jakub Sedo, “ Electoral Systems of Post Communist Countries” , (2006), p. 67. - 77 -

By the analysis of the electoral elections in Albanian case, we can say that through the majority system and the mixed dependent system the number of parties in the parliament has decreased; while through the proportional systems and mixed independent the number of parties in the parliament has increased. The last two parliamentary elections of Albania (2009 and 2013) had shown a rising influence of the small parties in government formation; so the coalitions before and after elections are very important. But the selected formula made almost impossible the possibilities for small parties to gain seats if they have not been part of one coalition; the parties that competed separated were destined to fail (the case of the Red and Black Alliance and the New Democratic Party). Almost all the small parties gathered around the coalitions formed by the two main parties, DP and SP. By imposing the mixed system it was aimed to guarantee political stability and the autocratic tendencies of the Albanian party leaders. In the proportional systems the seats in the parliament are calculated according to the votes casted nationwide from a political party; then they try to bring out as many people as they can. In this system the regional boundaries are non sense. In another view point the proportional system increases the opportunities for the representation of the small minorities and vulnerable groups in the parliament. The nationwide calculations made it possible for them to gather many votes. The Albanian case showed the same thing. Through the analysis of the electoral elections since 1990 we have seen many changes and configurations of the electoral systems. Obviously it will have an impact even in the party systems and the representation of the smaller parties would be possible. As a result, my recommendations are: The electoral system: the electoral system that has a better impact in the party system is the proportional family. The proportional system with open lists gives the opportunity to the voters to select their candidates and empower the influence of the party leaders in selecting the candidates. The level of threshold: in order for a better representation of all the social and interested groups the level of threshold should either remain the same or decrease. Through a low level of threshold, for the new parties is easier to pass it and win seats in the parliament. But the other side of the creation of new parties has its negative impact on the fragmentation of the system. A very fragmented system means difficulties in

- 78 - reaching consensus in forming the government. Due to the division of the party programs the government does not last long. CEC composition: the administration of the electoral process should not be done by the political representatives in the Central Election Commission. The structure of CEC should not be appointed by the political parties but should be apolitical. Its members should be by different spheres of the society like, media, NGOs, scholars and civil society. Party finance: the finances of the parties should be transparent, the funds and donations on the political parties should be declared and verified by the official institutions in order of preventing the conflict of the interests.

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