AIIS Publishes Survey Findings on Democracy and Local Elections
Tirana Times
TIRANA, April 7 – The Albanian Institute for International Studies (AIIS) organized on Thursday in Tirana a conference on “Democracy and local election” where findings of a nationwide survey on citizens’ perceptions and their expectations on local governance were unveiled.
The survey, conducted in cooperation with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung ahead of the May 8, 2011 local elections, brought interesting and valuable findings about the expected voter turnout, citizens’ reasons when voting a candidate, satisfaction with local government units during the past four years, community concerns and priorities.
The purpose of the study was to, first, seek to gauge participation and perceptions on local elections, with a focus on the upcoming local elections of 2011. Secondly, it seeks to measure perceptions of the quality of local governance, of main priorities and concerns over provision of local services, as well as engagement with local government institutions as those theoretically closest to citizens.
AIIS director Albert Rakipi said the survey’s goal was to contribute to the depoliticization of the local elections considering the current extreme polarization of the political environment.
Fatos Hodaj, the head of the Albanian Association of Municipalities also addressed the conference, stressing the need for decentralization. Speaking of the current political climate, Hodaj said that local elections were more politicized at present than ten years ago.
Diplomats, NGO and local government representatives attended the conference which received wide media coverage.
Results and conclusions
The analysis of main findings shows that it is expected that turnout in 2011 Local Elections is expected to remain between 60 % and 70 %, and does not suggest diminishing interest in election participation.
76.4 % of those choosing not to vote do so out of distrust of fairness of elections (42.6 %) or belief that elections do not bring about change (33.8 %). This accounts for 16.7 % of the total sample (compared to 24 % who said they won’t vote)
The government, citizens, the international community and the Central Electoral Commission are perceived as the most important actors responsible for the conduct of free and fair elections (ranked by level of perceived importance). Local government, political parties and civil society are perceived as less important.
A large part of citizens distrust the conduct of free and fair elections in 2011, or does not know what to expect. The sample is divided in three groups comparable in size – those believing that local elections will be free and fair (34.7 %), those believing that they will not be free and fair (28.3 %), and those that do not know (37.0 %).
A large majority perceive the process of selecting candidates for local elections to be highly centralized.
70 % of respondents think central leadership (party leader + central party executive) select municipal candidates, while only 16 % believe it is local leadership (local party leader + local party executive) making such decisions.
More respondents attribute strongest influence to central party structures than to the central party leader. Twice the amount of respondents have attributed strongest influence to central executive structures than the central party leader, while at the local level the leader and the executive structures receive equal perceptions of influence.
Local membership is chosen as most influential by only 7 % of respondents.
The situation is similar but slightly less “centralized” in the case of candidates for Municipal Councils.
46 % of respondents think candidates for Municipal Councils are selected at central party structures (party leader + party executive). Both the central party leader and the central executive structures are perceived as more powerful than the local homologues.
24 % believe selection is made by local party leadership (local party leader + local party leadership). Local party leader and local executive structures are selected as most influential by similar percentages of the total sample.
The Major and Local Party Membership were selected as most important factors by 10 % and 5 % of respondents respectively.
The perception of the relationship of local government with central government is negative (58 % choose negative vs. 38 % positive). Equal groups (23-24 % each) think this relationship is “somewhat good” or “very bad”. Only 3 % think the relationship is “very good”.
Overall, most citizens are satisfied – but modestly so – with the work of local government in the past 4 years. 63 % of respondents showed positive levels of evaluation compared to 31.5 % who selected negative ones. However, 40 % of the respondents fall in the “average” category (“somewhat satisfied” and “somewhat dissatisfied”). The largest group of 29 % is “somewhat satisfied”.
In confirmation of such data, 44 % of respondents would cast a confirmation vote for incumbent Majors. 34 % would not vote for incumbents while 22 % are undecided.
Citizens show a more symmetrical distribution between satisfaction and dissatisfaction with specific services provided by local government and there is no large variance in the evaluation of performance across sectors or types of services provided.
Largest levels of dissatisfaction are shown with “housing” and “social services”, followed by a second category of “urban planning and construction”, “healthcare” and “water and sewage”. Largest levels of satisfaction are shown towards “education” and “maintenance of public areas”, followed by a second category consisting of “urban transport” and “infrastructure”.
Contact with local government remains limited. Less than half of the respondents have accessed local governance institutions.
This is true even for a larger range of institutions, public authorities and political leaders. On a question given a full range of public institutions, 1/3 of respondents said they do not go anywhere when they have a problem to resolve, while 20 % said they “do not know”.
Half of respondents that does contact authorities, is nearly equally divided among contact with legislators (13 %), Majors (9 %), and local and central party leaders (9 % and 13 % respectively).
The main, similarly weighted, community concerns are “unemployment”, “corruption” and “poverty” (by order of importance). These are followed by concerns over “healthcare”, “environment” and “housing”. A third category of less prioritized concerns includes “social services”, “urban spaces”, and “violence/security”. Education is perceived as least concerning.
These views are confirmed by individual questions on education, healthcare, economic development and environment.
Most respondents value education and healthcare services as average (with 60-70 % of respondents being “somewhat satisfied” or “little satisfied” with both education and healthcare services). The ratio of positive/negative evaluations on education is 45/43 while on healthcare this is 39/46. The quality of schools is viewed as positive by 50 % of respondents and as negative by 33 %.
Evaluation of efforts and performance is lowest for “economic development” and “the protection of environment”. Efforts on economic development and environment are rated as unsatisfactory by 60 % of respondents, compared by 20 % who value efforts to date to be adequate.
Method of the survey
It is the AIIS belief that such data are useful to all relevant stakeholders in terms of efforts spanning from information to political participation, representation, development of campaign programs, and ultimately improved local policy development and good governance.
The study was conducted by means of random face-to-face interviews, with a sample size of 1250.
The sample was distributed in 10 cities, proportionally to size, based on official data of the National Institute of Statistics. Interviews were conducted in Shkod첬 Lezh묠Kuk쳬 Tiran묠Durr쳬 Elbasan, Fier, Berat, Kor諬 Gjirokast철and Vlor뮍
The survey was conducted during February 2011.
The questionnaire contained 26 questions, organized around four sections: Demographic data, 2011 Local Elections, Satisfaction with Local Governance, and the Community Agenda. Questions were structured as either multiple choice questions or as questions asking for evaluations on a scale 1-10, with 1 being the weakest value and 10 the strongest.
After data cleaning and proportional weighting for gender and age, 1202 questionnaires were used in the analysis. Respondents were limited to those over the voting age of 18 years.
The results of this study can only be generalized over the urban and peri-urban population of the country. However, given the demographic movements of the past 20 years we believe the sample is de-facto more representative of the entire country than official data on rural and urban population would suggest.
