From Nikola Kedhi 

In Albania, the debate on the electoral system usually erupts in moments of crisis, in the pre-election period or is found in the OSCE-ODIHR recommendations. This discussion in any case ends either with unstudied copying of foreign models, as if democracy were an instruction manual, or with sui generis creations, like the current model we have.

In general, there is a very wrong reflex that if we copy models that exist elsewhere and implement them as they are there, our democracy will flourish. Electoral systems do not operate in a vacuum. They are products of history, institutions, behaviors, and the real balances of power in a society. What produces stability and representation in Northern Europe can produce deformation and capture in the Balkans.

The right question, then, is not which system others use, but which system best responds to our concrete problems and, above all, which comes closest to accurately representing the popular will. Democracy is not measured by the theoretical elegance of the rules, but by their ability to resist abuse. The purpose of this series of writings is precisely to study different systems in similar countries or with consolidated democracies, and to adapt the different elements that work with our reality.

There is no perfect system. Every electoral model involves trade-offs between representation and governance, between stability and pluralism. But some systems minimize injustice better than others. Fair representation means that votes are equally weighted, that the ratio between votes and seats is not severely distorted, that as few votes as possible are wasted, that genuine pluralism is not artificially penalized, and that the outcome is perceived as legitimate by the majority of citizens.

In this context, the system coming from Germany, the Mixed-Member Proportional (MMP, or Majoritarian Corrected Proportional), deserves to be taken seriously. It is a system similar to the one we had until 2008. This is not a forced or unclear union between the two systems, but an architecture designed precisely to separate two things that are often confused: local representation and the real distribution of power.

The German model operates on a simple and disciplined logic. Each voter casts two separate votes. The first vote is for the candidate of the area, in a direct majoritarian competition between individuals. This vote elects the local deputy and maintains the connection between the citizen and the elected, creating personal accountability and concrete representation. But this vote, although politically important, does not determine the final balance of power, as this vote can be distorted by individuals or groups with local weight, by oligarchs, or simply individuals with influence in the community, who can distort the result in any way.

Power is determined by the second vote, the one for the party at the national level. This vote decides how many seats each political force gets in total. If a party receives 30 percent of the national vote, it is entitled to about 30 percent of the seats in parliament. Deputies won in the zones are counted within this quota. If there are fewer, they are filled from the national lists. If there are more, the system does not reward them with additional power.

This is where the key mechanism of the German system comes into play: corrective mandates. If a party wins more local areas than it is proportionally entitled to, the system does not deny the victory of individuals, but neither does it allow this to distort national representation. To maintain proportionality, mandates are added to other parties until the final balance of parliament matches the will of the voters as closely as possible. It is an institutional “safety net” that prevents precisely what Albania has often experienced: governing with a real minority but an artificial majority of mandates.

The model is also accompanied by a relatively serious electoral threshold, usually around 5 percent, which serves to curb extreme fragmentation and preserve the functionality of the parliament. The system also rewards pre- or post-electoral coalitions. The most frequent criticism of this system is that it is technically complicated. But this criticism confuses institutional complexity with the burden on the citizen. For the voter, the choice is simple: one person and one party. The complexity of the calculation is the responsibility of the institutions, not the citizens.

Of course, the system also has disadvantages. Parliament can be expanded due to corrective mandates. The counting process is more sophisticated. Governments are often coalitions. But these are clear and manageable costs, and not necessarily replicable for our reality. We in any system will have to take what is valuable to us.

In return, the system offers something much more valuable: legitimacy, electoral fairness, and resistance to manipulation.

For Albania, this is vital. The use of public administration, the influence of criminal groups in certain territories, the lack of coalitions, the distortion of the popular vote and mandates in Parliament, are phenomena that are fed by systems where local control is directly translated into national power. In a mixed proportional system, criminal influence in an area is no longer politically multiplied.

The mixed proportional system guarantees something more fundamental: if a real majority of citizens vote for one party, that majority will translate into power. Without artificial bonuses for the opponent and without geographical manipulation.

Albania does not need magic solutions, but institutions and systems that treat the citizen as a source of power, not as an object of management. The mixed proportional system is not perfect, but it is one of the few systems that withstands the Albanian reality. Because ultimately, democracy is not the art of winning elections, but the art of not stealing them.