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So the hope or idea of the opposition is that the more candidates, the more likely it is that the vote will increase through the lobbying that each candidate does for himself, being more motivated in the campaign.
At today's meeting of the two co-chairs on electoral reform, Oerd Bylykbashi stated that the opposition will seek to change the electoral system, focusing on restoring the coalition scheme that functioned before the 2021 elections.
Scheme, where the Democratic Party recorded its first real victory as a relative majority in the country as an electoral coalition, that of 2009.
Bylykbashi's colleague, representative of the majority, Damian Gjiknuri, gave a clear, although not final, "No" today regarding the return of the old coalition scheme, expressing nevertheless the majority's will to launch an expanded discussion regarding electoral reform.
The old coalition scheme, the so-called "multi-car train," has become entrenched in the minds of many political representatives and media supporters of the opposition as a vital pillar for the conduct of the elections in the country.
In fact, for 5 years now, they have not stopped accusing that the change that occurred in August 2020 when the DP burned its mandates is the cause of the victory of Edi Rama's majority.
How realistic is this version and what is the "electoral wagon train" really? In the minds of many supporters of Sali Berisha and Ilir Meta, it is considered an important key to victory.
According to the old train scheme, an electoral coalition appeared before voters with their candidates in all 12 electoral zones of the country, i.e. districts, as well as their party logos.
Under the current scheme, an electoral coalition must have one logo and only one common list of candidates.
In conclusion, the votes that the coalitions receive from the citizens are the same, but the favor is on the candidate lists. Today, if we take the two large coalitions of the left and the right, each presents 120 candidates in the elections.
Meanwhile, with the electoral train, each of the parties that enter the coalition comes out with its own candidates. So, let's say a coalition has 10 parties, there will be 1200 candidates.
So the hope or idea of the opposition is that the more candidates, the more likely it is that the vote will increase through the lobbying that each candidate does for himself, being more motivated in the campaign.
In fact, this idea is more theoretical, and not so much projected into our electoral reality, although in 2009, the train was considered to have been an important factor in the victory of the Democratic Party.
The weight of this scheme in 2009 can be said to have been observed in the Elbasan, Berat, or even Tirana districts, where there was a consolidation of votes from the DP coalition compared to tradition.
But if you look carefully, you'll notice that it wasn't so much about the "train" as it was about some candidate names, which carried more weight than others.
In Elbasan, where the team was led by Lulzim Basha, they managed to win Peqin, where Dash Sula was the candidate. An area that the DP has never won since then in any subsequent election.
In Berat, Lefter Maliqi had influence, as he had influence in the area of Ura Vajgurore, mainly in the former municipality of Otllaku.
And speaking of the municipalities, it was precisely this spider-like organization of power that also created a clientelist influence.
However, the fixation that clientelistic influence came from the train system seems overstated. It is true that in 2009 there was an increase in clientelistic votes that were drawn not from the main parties but from the allies of the major parties.
But in reality, that year was the peak of prosperity and the beginning of the end of that development, that is, the system of so-called small parties that collected votes in the large granaries of the left and the right.
These "proxy" served as electoral and organizational mechanisms outside the classical structures of the SP on one side and the DP on the other. Meanwhile, Ilir Meta's LSI played a major role, which with its coalition managed to get 75 thousand votes even though Rama and Berisha made the system to ensure the hegemony of the bigwigs.
Today we are in the bloom of this system, that is, one that favors large parties, a system that has already been tested. A new actor in the political market can enter either by being a large factor, or in a case of crisis of one of the factors. As happened on May 11, where some small ones took advantage of the chaos in the Democratic Party. But as things turned out, they could not survive and have no hope for the next elections.
The question arises spontaneously, what prompted the DP to seek a system that favors the young today, when it is also driving its own people away from the party?
It is likely that this move by Bylykbasht is a kind of bluff, hiding something else. Namely, the entry of the DP into the electoral reform commission as a main factor along with the SP.
A move that in reality increases the weight and factors the opposition where things are serious: in defining the rules of the game, with the internationals being the referee in this case.
In other words, the DP, namely Berisha, is getting ready to enter into a double tango with Edi Rama for major changes to the Constitution and the political system. And he is disguising this with "smoke bombs" to at least somewhat avoid accusations of collaborationism at the height of the election campaign within the DP.
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