In today's meeting of the two co-chairs for electoral reform, Oerd Bylykbashi declared that the opposition will seek changes to the electoral system, focusing on the return of the coalition scheme that worked before the 2021 elections.
A scheme where the Democratic Party recorded its first real victory as a relative majority in the country as an electoral coalition, that of 2009. Bylykbashi's colleague, representing the majority, Damian Gjiknuri, gave a clear "No" today, though not final, regarding the return of the old coalition scheme, while expressing the majority's willingness to start an expanded discussion on electoral reform.
The old coalition scheme, known as the "multi-carriage train," is fixed in the minds of many political representatives and media supporters of the opposition as a vital pillar for the conduct of elections in the country. Indeed, for the past 5 years, they have not ceased accusations that the change that occurred in August 2020 when the PD burned its mandates is the cause of Edi Rama's majority victory.
How much does this version really hold, and what is the "electoral train" in reality? In the minds of many supporters of Sali Berisha and Ilir Meta, it is considered an important key to victory.
According to the old train scheme, an electoral coalition would present itself to voters with their candidates in all 12 electoral zones of the country, i.e., districts, as well as their party logos. With the current scheme, an electoral coalition must have one logo and only one common list of candidates. Ultimately, the votes that coalitions receive from citizens are the same, but the favor lies with the candidate lists. Today, if we take the two major left and right coalitions, each presents 120 candidates in the elections.
Meanwhile, with the electoral train, each party entering the coalition presents its own candidates. So, if a coalition has 10 parties, it will have 1200 candidates. Thus, the hope or idea of the opposition is that the more candidates, the more chances there are to increase votes through lobbying that each candidate does for themselves, being more motivated in the campaign. In fact, this idea is more theoretical, not so much projected onto our electoral reality, although in 2009, the train is considered to have been an important factor for the PD's victory.
The weight of this scheme in 2009 could be said to have been noticed in the districts of Elbasan, Berat, or even in Tirana, where there was a consolidation of votes from the PD coalition compared to tradition. But if looked at carefully, it is noted that it was not so much the "train" as some candidate names, which had more weight than others. In Elbasan, where the team was led by Lulzim Basha, they managed to win Peqin, where the candidate was Dash Sula. An area that the PD has never won since then in any subsequent election. In Berat, Lefter Maliqi had weight, who had influence in the Ura Vajgurore area, mainly in the Otllak commune.
And speaking of communes, it was precisely this spider-web-like power organization, which also created a clientelistic influence. However, the fixation that clientelistic influence came from the train system seems overrated. It is true that in 2009 there was an increase in clientelistic votes that were drawn not from the main parties but from the allies of the major parties.
But in reality, that year was the peak of flourishing and the beginning of the end of that development, i.e., the system of so-called small parties that gathered votes in the large barns of the left and right. These "proxies" served as electoral and organizational mechanisms outside the classical structures of the PS on one side and the PD on the other. Meanwhile, Ilir Meta's LS played a major role, which with its coalition managed to get 75 thousand votes even though Rama and Berisha made the system to ensure the hegemony of the major parties.
Today we are in the flourishing of this system, which favors major parties, a system that has already been approved. A new actor in the political market can enter either by being a major factor or in a crisis of one of the factors. As happened on May 11th, where some small ones benefited from the chaos in the Democratic Party. But as things were seen, they did not survive and have no chance in the upcoming elections.
The question arises spontaneously, what drove the PD to seek a system that favors the small ones today, when it is also distancing its own people from the party? The chances are that this move by Bylykbashi is a kind of bluff, hiding something else. Specifically, the PD's entry into the electoral reform commission as a main factor together with the PS. A move that in reality increases the weight and factors the opposition where things are serious: in determining the rules of the game, and the internationals who are the arbiters in this case.
In other words, the PD, specifically Berisha, is preparing to enter the tango duo with Edi Rama for major constitutional and political system changes. And this is being masked with "smoke Molotovs" to somewhat avoid accusations of collaborationism at the peak of the election campaign within the PD.