2019 Albanian Local Elections

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Local elections were held in Albania held on 30 June 2019. Voters were asked to elect mayors, municipal council members, municipal unit mayors and municipal unit members. These were the second local elections in Albania since substantial administrative reforms legislated in 2014 reduced the number of municipalities in the country to 61.

The Central Election Commission of Albania was responsible for administrating the elections.

Background

Following months of political crisis, opposition parties promised to not participate in the election, accusing the government and the Prime Minister of vote buying, voter intimidation and links with criminal organizations which had contributed to the Socialist Party's majority in previous elections.

The President originally attempted to postpone the elections, instead opting to hold them on October 13 after many protests were held by opposition parties, some of which turned violent. The postponement was, however, not accepted by the government and the CEC, which decided to continue with the process on the original date.^[1]

The Socialists ran uncontested in 31 municipalities, facing smaller parties and independent candidates in the other 30 municipalities, including the newly formed Bindja Demokratike, resulting in an absolute win by the Socialists in all municipalities except Finiq,^[2] and the Socialists gaining the most votes in all city council elections except Finiq and Pukë.

In most areas, turnout was low, ranging between under 10% in Shkodra to around 38% in Librazhd. Only one municipality, Pustec, was outside of this range, and had a turnout of over 50%.

Parties and coalitions

Following the decision of the Albanian opposition to not run in the elections, the incumbent Socialist Party and their alliance faced very little competition in most municipalities, only having to counter small parties and independents.

The Democratic Party opted to not partake in the elections, following several months of protests.^[3][4]

Results

Five days after the election, on July 4, 2019, only preliminary results were available. The final results were not published until the end of July.^[5]

Shkodër and Finiq remained led by the opposition, despite boycotts. Other municipalities returned a majority for the Socialist Party.^[6] According to official figures, turnout was 22.97%, equivalent to 812,249 people. The opposition stated that, according to their calculations, only 534,528 people took part, which means that the turnout was 15.12%.^{[7][undue weight? – discuss]} The elections were declared as a farce by leader of the opposition Lulzim Basha at the time.^[8]

Shkodër was handed back to Voltana Ademi following a trial against the official winner who was suspected to have been involved in trafficking.^[9]