Local elections were held in

Albania Albania ( ; or ), officially the Republic of Albania (), is a country in Southeast Europe. It is located in the Balkans, on the Adriatic Sea, Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea, and shares land borders with Montenegro to ...

held on 30 June 2019. Voters were asked to elect mayors,

municipal council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, borough cou ...

members, municipal unit mayors and municipal unit members. These were the second local elections in Albania since substantial administrative reforms legislated in 2014 reduced the number of municipalities in the country to 61. The Central Election Commission of Albania was responsible for administrating the elections.

Background

Following months of

political crisis A cabinet crisis, government crisis or political crisis refers to a situation where an incumbent government is unable to form or function, is toppled through an uprising, or collapses. Political crises may correspond with, cause or be caused by an ...

, opposition parties promised to not participate in the election, accusing the government and the Prime Minister of vote buying, voter intimidation and links with criminal organizations which had contributed to the

Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of th ...

's majority in previous elections. The President originally attempted to postpone the elections, instead opting to hold them on October 13 after many protests were held by opposition parties, some of which turned violent. The postponement was, however, not accepted by the government and the CEC, which decided to continue with the process on the original date. The Socialists ran uncontested in 31 municipalities, facing smaller parties and independent candidates in the other 30 municipalities, including the newly formed , resulting in an absolute win by the Socialists in all municipalities except

Finiq Finiq (, sq-definite, Finiqi, ) is a settlement, considered a town or village, and municipality in Vlorë County, in southern Albania located 8 km from the Ionian Sea and 20 km north of the Greek border. It was formed at the 2015 local g ...

, and the Socialists gaining the most votes in all city council elections except Finiq and Pukë. In most areas, turnout was low, ranging between under 10% in Shkodra to around 38% in

Librazhd Librazhd ( sq-definite, Librazhdi) is a town and a municipality in Elbasan County, southeast Albania. The municipality was reformed at the 2015 local government reform by the merger of the former municipalities Hotolisht, Librazhd, Lunik, Orenj ...

. Only one municipality,

Pustec Pustec (; ) formerly known as Liqenas (1973–2013), is a village in Pustec Municipality, Korçë County, eastern Albania. Situated on the southwestern shore of Lake Prespa, it is home to much of the Macedonian minority in Albania. Geography ...

, was outside of this range, and had a turnout of over 50%.

Parties and coalitions

Following the decision of the Albanian opposition to not run in the elections, the incumbent Socialist Party and their alliance faced very little competition in most municipalities, only having to counter small parties and independents. The Democratic Party opted to not partake in the elections, following several months of protests.

Results

Five days after the election, on July 4, 2019, only preliminary results were available. The final results were not published until the end of July.

Shkodër Shkodër ( , ; sq-definite, Shkodra; historically known as Scodra or Scutari) is the List of cities and towns in Albania, fifth-most-populous city of Albania and the seat of Shkodër County and Shkodër Municipality. Shkodër has been List of o ...

and

remained led by the opposition, despite boycotts. Other municipalities returned a majority for the Socialist Party. According to official figures, turnout was 22.97%, equivalent to 812,249 people. The opposition stated that, according to their calculations, only 534,528 people took part, which means that the turnout was 15.12%. The elections were declared as a farce by leader of the opposition Lulzim Basha at the time.

was handed back to Voltana Ademi following a trial against the official winner who was suspected to have been involved in trafficking.

References

External links

Central Elections Commissions
{{Albanian elections 2019 in Albanian politics

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

June 2019 in Europe