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Democratic Party MP Ferdinand Xhaferaj, who was left out of the May 11 race, listed some of the reasons why Sali Berisha and the opposition lost these elections.
Xhaferaj said that he had read the results over the course of three years and there was a certification of what I had said.
"We do not dispute that we have competitive authoritarianism in Albania. Elections are held and they are competitive, but as the OSCE/ODIHR stated, we have the use of the state in favor of the ruling party and an attempt is made to marginalize the opposition. The major problem within this is that the majority received much less than in 2013. It is not that the majority increased, but the opposition was not able to grow where it should ," Xhaferaj declared on the "Off the Record" show on A2 CNN.
According to the right-wing lawmaker, Berisha's major problem in these elections was that he failed to unite the four opposition fronts that competed against Rama.
In Xhaferaj's view, Berisha should have entered the race in a coalition with the parties of Lapaj, Shehaj, and Shehi, offering them at least 8 seats on the safe lists and offering Albanians hope and an alternative in the face of the worn-out left-wing government.
" Berisha returned and received the support of the parliamentary group based on political realism because in those local elections that Ilir Meta decreed in 2022, he clearly came out better than Lulzim Basha. We saw from the desire to remove this government that Berisha was powerful, the strongest opposition factor, but that we needed a lot of work to do to defeat Edi Rama. This was also seen in 2023 where we were told that even without a seal we collected 500 thousand votes. But from here it stemmed that we have a Berisha returned with all the capacity to mobilize a large part of the DP, but with large deficits to mobilize the entire DP and the gray electorate.
This is where what we should do came from. It was Berisha's duty to guarantee a large opposition coalition, because Edi Rama, even with an opposition divided into four factions, 52% went to the final. And the Albanian electorate had to see endless negotiations between Berisha, Shehaj and Lapaj, to tell them that they are asking for 5-6 mandates but I give them 7-8. Because for the sake of political rotation I will tell Flamur, Albana and all the others that you are on an open list. This was the first development that has harmed us" , said Xhaferaj.
Another important factor that, according to the DP MP, led to the heavy defeat of May 11, was the lack of new figures in their closed list. Referring to Ilir Alimehmet who was in the studio, but also other names from the right, Xhaferaj said that with them on the safe list and the “veterans” in the open one, the gray electorate would tend to vote for the DP.
" The second thing that has harmed us is that we did not see rotation within the political force. In 70% of it, the closed list was the 2013 list. When this perspective from 2013 to 2025 has produced flows. One is on your side (referring to Ilir Alimehmet). It would be very good if these flows were more represented in the closed list and the voters gave us this message. They proved it to us with a certificate ", Xhaferaj underlined.
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