Nevila Gjata
Prime Minister Edi Rama stated on Tuesday in the ‘Sy më sy’ ‘Eye to Eye’ segment that he does not foresee any change in the parliamentary majority in the upcoming elections. ‘To be very clear; I do not project a change in the majority, in the ruling party. The Socialist Party will regain the majority…,’ said Rama.
Mandates
Faktoje.al, in collaboration with expert Ilir Brasha, provides a projection on the number of mandates that the participating parties could potentially receive. However, the current electoral system in Albania, as it is structured, clearly favors the larger parties, making it much harder for smaller parties to secure a seat in Parliament.
This phenomenon arises due to the distribution of mandates and how votes are counted at the district level.
In principle, Ilir Brasha explains that the largest party (in this case, the Socialist Party) generally manages to win a larger number of mandates for fewer votes per mandate, compared to any other party that ranks lower. This means that the larger the party, the more efficient it becomes in converting votes into mandates. Conversely, smaller parties often struggle to win a mandate, even with a significant number of votes on a national scale.
2021 Elections
A concrete example of this phenomenon was observed in the 2021 parliamentary elections. The Socialist Movement for Integration (LSI), despite receiving around 107,000 votes nationwide, was unable to secure proportional representation based on its votes (6.81% or four mandates).
This happened because LSI’s votes were spread across all 12 districts, and they did not manage to concentrate in a way that would have guaranteed mandates. In contrast, the Social Democratic Party of Tom Doshi, despite receiving fewer votes than LSI (35,475 or 2.25%), secured three mandates, thanks to the concentration of voters in specific districts.
Scenario
The same scenario is expected to unfold in the 2025 parliamentary elections. Even though this time we have emigrant votes and a system with partially open lists, the principle of mandate distribution remains the same, continuing to favor parties that manage to concentrate their votes in particular districts.
Calculation
With about a month left until the elections, Ilir Brasha referred to two key factors to provide a current projection of the number of mandates.
The latest independent survey, which serves as a reliable indicator of how votes might be distributed among parties in the country, is the Barometer poll. Brasha referred to the Barometer results from March, which were based on data collected in February (the subsequent survey is published a week later).
The second factor considered are the results of the 2021 parliamentary elections. Why not use the 2023 local elections? Because they do not offer an accurate overview of party support at the national level, as they are significantly influenced by local factors.
Therefore, to create a more stable and realistic projection of how mandates might be distributed in the upcoming elections, expert Ilir Brasha has made a calculation based on the Barometer survey results for the month of February, combined with the actual votes received by the main parties in the 2021 parliamentary elections.
This projection takes into consideration not only the support percentages from the survey, but also the Albanian electoral reality, where the geographic distribution of votes, the size of constituencies, and the electoral system directly impact the allocation of mandates.
The Numbers
According to this combined analysis, expert Brasha calculates that (up to this point) the Socialist Party once again emerges as the leading political force in the country, securing 75 mandates, which grants it a majority in Parliament (140 mandates in total).
The Democratic Party, despite a slight increase in support according to the polls, (based on current calculations) manages to secure 54 mandates.
Even though the emigrant vote and partially open lists are new factors that could influence the results, at this moment in time, they do not change the essence of the race: a majority for the Socialist Party and an opposition still striving to expand its electoral impact.
The Small Parties
The results of the new parties appear positive, according to expert Ilir Brasha. Based on the calculations he has conducted so far, they collectively secure 11 mandates. Specifically, the coalition ‘Nisma Shqipëria Bëhet’ wins 8 mandates, the ‘Mundësia’ Party gains 2 mandates, and the ‘Bashkë’ Movement earns 1 mandate.
Looking at the votes by districts, with the exception of Shkodra and Kukës, where the DP-ASHM coalition is in the lead, all other districts are led by the Socialist Party (SP).
Based on the projections, the mandates in Tirana are allocated as follows: 18 to the Socialist Party, 13 to PD-ASHN, 3 to the ‘NISMA-SHB’ coalition, 2 to ‘MUNDËSIA’, and 1 to ‘BASHKË’.
| District | SP | DP-ASHM | NISMA-SHB | MUNDËSIA | BASHKË |
| Tirana | 18 | 13 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| Fier | 9 | 6 | 1 | ||
| Elbasan | 8 | 5 | 1 | ||
| Durrës | 8 | 5 | 1 | ||
| Korça | 6 | 4 | |||
| Vlora | 7 | 4 | 1 | ||
| Shkodra | 4 | 6 | 1 | ||
| Berat | 5 | 2 | |||
| Lezha | 3 | 4 | |||
| Dibra | 3 | 2 | |||
| Gjirokastra | 3 | 1 | |||
| Kukës | 1 | 2 | |||
| Scenario 1 | 75 | 54 | 8 | 2 | 1 |
| Scenario 2 | 69 | 55 | 10 | 5 | 1 |
Table 1: Projection – Distribution of mandates by parties and districts in the May 11, 2025 elections.
Surprises
From the table above, we can identify two scenarios outlined by expert Ilir Brasha. One indicates that the Socialist Party wins the elections with 75 MPs, thus securing a stable majority. The second scenario involves the element of emigrants voting for the first time from abroad, as well as the increasing number of undecided voters, based on the period when the Barometer survey was conducted.
Taking these two elements into account, Brasha notes that the situation could easily shift to the disadvantage of the Socialist Party. In other words, if the emigrant vote and the votes of the undecided swing toward other parties and not to the Socialist Party, they could create the margin needed for a different party to win a mandate on one side and for the Socialist Party to lose one on the other. According to Brasha’s calculations, if these two factors enter the race strongly in favor of other parties, the Socialist Party’s seat count could drop to 69.
Disadvantage
In an alternative scenario, Brasha suggests that six mandates could be in jeopardy for the Socialist Party. Why? Because the threshold (quotient) for those mandates is very close to the threshold for mandates that other parties could gain.
Following this reasoning, Brasha states that the Socialist Party could lose one mandate in Tirana to the ‘NISMA-SHB’ coalition, another in Korça also to NISMA-SHB, and one each in the districts of Fier, Elbasan, and Vlora, which would increase the mandate count for the other party ‘Mundësia’. In the case of one mandate in Elbasan that could go to the ‘Mundësia’ party, it could be lost either by the Socialist Party or by PD-ASHM, since the vote quotient for the final mandate is roughly equal for both parties. Moreover, PD-ASHM could potentially win mandates at the expense of the Socialist Party in Durrës, Dibra, and Gjirokastra.
Brasha notes that, in total, the new parties could potentially gain up to 16 seats in parliament, with NISMA-SHB leading with 10 mandates under the second scenario, ‘Mundësia’ securing 5, and ‘Bashkë’ gaining 1.
| District | Wins | Loses |
| Tirana | NISMA-SHB | SP |
| Fier | MUNDËSIA | SP |
| Elbasan | MUNDËSIA | SP or DP-ASHM |
| Durrës | DP-ASHM | SP |
| Korça | NISMA-SHB | SP |
| Vlora | MUNDËSIA | SP |
| Dibra | DP-ASHM | SP |
| Gjirokastra | DP-ASHM | SP |
PSD
According to the Barometer poll conducted in February 2025, there are no significant votes registered for the Social Democratic Party or the ‘Euro-Atlantic Coalition’ Party. Based on mathematical calculations, both currently result in zero mandates.
However, it is important to recall that the PSD also did not appear relevant in previous parliamentary election polls, yet ultimately secured three seats in Parliament.
The same outcome, according to expert Brasha, is likely to repeat in this election, where PSD, due to its concentrated vote base, could win mandates in the districts of Shkodra, Lezha, and Tirana, taking them from the two main parties.
As for the Euro-Atlantic Coalition Party, represented by Lulzim Basha, we will need to await future polling results to gain a clearer picture of how they are positioned and what results they might achieve in the May 11 elections.
Conclusions
The combination of the February Barometer poll and the 2021 election results represents only a preliminary projection, essentially a snapshot of the current moment, not an exact forecast of the final results. Nevertheless, the projections indicate that the Socialist Party feels increasingly threatened by the new parties when it comes to maintaining a stable majority.
Therefore, based on the two above-mentioned scenarios, Prime Minister Edi Rama’s statement that the SP is expected to win the majority in these elections can, for now, be considered partially true.
