By Artan Pernaska
apernaska@tiranatimes.com
The second poll completed by the Italian company IPR Marketing on behalf of the Albanian TV, Ora News, released last week-end, shows the main opposition party, the Socialist Party (PS) heading the voting poll by 1 % more than the ruling party, the Democratic Party (PD). These parties scored 43 % and 42 % in the instant or “to day” voting intentions of the persons asked to give their opinion.
If the vote were to be held on the same day that the polling was conducted, the opposition coalition Union for Changement (Bashkimi per Ndryshim), led by the Socialist Party, would lead with 47.3 % . The Alliance of Change (Aleanca e Ndryshimit), led by the ruling Democratic Party, would fall behind with 44.7 % .
IPR Marketing reports that the poll gives an indication of the overall Albanian voting tendency at the moment (“to day” voting intentions) on a national-scale. But IPR stresses that the distribution of elected legislators is dependent on the results in each of the largest electoral circumscriptions (qarqe).
The main new finding of the IPR Marketing poll is that the ruling Democratic Party (PD) has seen an increasing curb in favorable voting opinion, rising from 37 % in mid-April poll results to 42 % in mid-May results. The company underlines that this may be due to recent “hits” highlighted by the government such as NATO adhesion, the request for candidate status for EU membership and last month’s increase of retirement and public sector wages.
Another finding is that PS is leading in the electoral circumscription of Tirana with three more percentage points than at the national level (PS 46 % – PD 41 % in the electoral circumscription of Tirane). Based on the fact that the qark of Tiran
