AIIS survey says citizens’ opinion on local authorities balanced

TIRANA, May 5 – The Albanian Institute for International Studies published the following survey on the May 8 local elections.
The purpose of the study was to gauge participation and perceptions on local elections and to measure perceptions on the quality of local governance, of the main priorities and concerns over provision of local services, as well as engagement with local government institutions as those theoretically closest to citizens.
The study conducted in February this year was conducted by means of random face-to-face interviews, with a sample size of 1250 in 10 cities _ Shkod첬 Lezh묠Kuk쳬 Tiran묠Durr쳬 Elbasan, Fier, Berat, Korc묠Gjirokast철and Vlore. Respondents were limited to those over 18 years old, who are eligible to vote.
Most of the respondents, 70.6 percent, said they had participated at the local elections four years ago and 63.2 percent said they would also take part at Sunday’s voting. Most of the non-participating ones, 42.6 percent, said they did not think they would be free and fair as the reason, followed lack of trust they would change anything 33.8 percent. 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 percent), those believing that they will not be free and fair (28.3 percent), and those that do not know (37.0 percent).
A large majority perceive the process of selection of candidates for local elections to be highly centralized. 70 percent of respondents think central leadership (party leader + central party executive) select municipal candidates, while only 16 percent 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.
The perception of the relationship of local government with central government is negatives (58 percent negative vs. 38 percent positive). Equal groups (23-24 percent each) think this relationship is “somewhat good” or “very bad”. Only 3 percent 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 percent of respondents showed positive levels of satisfaction compared to 31.5 percent who selected negative ones. However, 40 percent of the respondents fall in the “average” category (“somewhat satisfied” and “somewhat dissatisfied”). The largest group of 29 percent is “somewhat satisfied”.
In confirmation of such data, 44 percent of respondents would cast a confirmation vote for incumbent Majors. 34 percent would not vote for incumbents while 22 percent are undecided.
Citizens show a more symmetrical distribution between satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the 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 percent said they “do not know”.
The half of respondents that does contact authorities, is nearly equally divided among contact with legislators (13 percent), Majors (9 percent), and local and central party leaders (9 percent and 13 percent respectively).
Local membership is chosen as most influential by only 7 percent of respondents.
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 significant concerns includes “social services”, “urban spaces”, and “violence/security”. Education is perceived as least problematic.
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 percent 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 percent of respondents and as negative by 33 percent.
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 percent of respondents, compared by 20 percent who value efforts to date to be adequate.
The survey concludes that turnout in the 2011 Local Elections is expected to remain between 60 percent and 70 percent.