TIRANA, Nov.16 – Albania’s Central Election Commission has sent an official request to the Ministry of Interior Affairs demanding accurate data regarding the exact number of population in each of the country’s districts which will eventually help authorities to make a redistribution of parliamentary mandates.
Officials believe that there needs to be a redistribution of seats based on population changes in the past four years, with Tirana and Durres counties gaining MP seats due to population increase, while Berat, Korca and Kukes counties losing seats due to having fewer residents.
Each county, containing several municipalities, also doubles as an electoral area.
The request means that the existing method of distributing the mandates of members of parliament will change in the upcoming parliamentary elections of 2017.
In addition, the new distribution of mandates will be accompanied by an entirely new electoral map, considering that the expected amendments will impact almost half of Albania’s constituencies.
For years, Albania has witnessed several errors in the fair representation of electoral districts.
The ratio of voters to representatives in many districts has been disproportionate as a result of the decrease in the population growth rate and demographic changes.
These developments have pushed officials at the Central Election Commission to correct and update Albania’s electoral map.
The legislation provides that the number of mandates for each electoral area is calculated based on the number of residents.
According to the calculation formula the total number of citizens is divided among 140 seats in the parliament, determining an average of voters that will get a parliament representative.
In January 2013, few months before the parliamentary elections of June 23, the parliament approved a decree that set out the number of representatives for every electoral area.
The Socialist Party in opposition at the time was against the electoral map, describing it as a dangerous precedent that would compromise the electoral process.
