I left Albania with a suitcase full of fear and a few photos to never forget, leaving my name written on the ground where I had learned to walk. My mother crying softly, my father claiming strength and faith, and me leaving with a secret promise: “I will return one day.” I didn’t know when, I didn’t know why, but I knew that a part of me would remain there, waiting for me and reminding me of who I was and what I wanted to do.
This personal reflection is not simply emotional; it is directly related to the way the citizen relates to the state and to political representation. Voting is not just a procedure, but an act of trust. When the electoral system does not clearly translate this act into representation, distance, distrust and civic withdrawal are created. Precisely for this reason, the analysis of functional electoral models in Western parliamentary republics is essential for any serious discussion on electoral and territorial reform in Albania.
A valuable case study is Estonia; a parliamentary republic with a structured proportional representation system, with clear mathematical rules and corrective mechanisms aimed at protecting the equality of votes. The Estonian parliament has 101 members and is elected through multi-member constituencies. Each party presents lists of candidates, but unlike the classic closed-list model, the voter directly chooses the candidate. This means that the vote has two dimensions at the same time: it strengthens the party and measures the personal support of the candidate.
The process of distributing seats in Estonia is structured in several stages to minimize proportional distortion. First, an electoral quota is calculated in each district. Candidates who personally exceed this quota win a seat directly. The remaining seats are divided among parties according to the total votes in the district, and finally a national compensatory level is used to balance the final percentage with the national vote. This mechanism is essential from a mathematical point of view because it reduces the difference between the percentage of votes and the percentage of seats, a key indicator of electoral fairness.
Another structural element is the 5% national threshold. This threshold is not simply a political filter, but an instrument of institutional stability. It ensures that only forces with minimal real support enter parliament, avoiding extreme fragmentation and unstable artificial coalitions. Thus, the Estonian system builds a balance between broad representation and governing functionality.
When we turn to Albania, the architecture is formally proportional, but the lists are mostly closed and the citizen has less influence on the ranking of candidates. The 140-member parliament is elected in 12 districts. Mandates are distributed proportionally within the district, not at the national level, which creates statistical deviations. Districts with few mandates raise the effective entry threshold and favor large parties. This is not a matter of perception, but a well-known effect in the theory of electoral systems: the smaller the size of the area, the weaker the real proportionality.
Furthermore, the list structure has historically been closed or semi-open, giving the party control over the winning order. Even when preferential voting exists, the threshold for changing the order is high and the number of seats actually affected by preference remains limited. This produces a vertical party-MP relationship and a weak voter-MP relationship. From an accountability perspective, this is a structural problem.
This comparison suggests several reform directions that could serve the Albanian debate. The real opening of the lists would create competition within parties and shift the focus to the quality of the candidate. A stronger preferential vote would allow citizens to choose their candidate within the party list, linking the election result more directly to the individual will of the voter and increasing the responsibility of the deputy. A national compensatory mechanism would reduce the inequality created by the current territorial distribution of mandates. Periodic review of the distribution of mandates according to the actual population would strengthen the equality of the vote between districts. These are not mechanical transplants of the model, but logical adaptations proven in practice.
Electoral reform is not simply a matter of formula, but an architecture of trust. When the mathematical rule is fair and understandable, political legitimacy increases. And when legitimacy increases, citizens don't vote simply to participate, they vote because they know they count.
In the end, every vote is a promise, a means to influence the future of a country. Democracy is not broken by loss, but by the feeling that your voice is not heard. When the vote is counted correctly, the citizen is returned to the center of the system and that is where true democracy begins.
*Member of the Brain Gain Department
