The Democratic Party has its proposal ready for changing the electoral system, not only for parliamentary elections, but also for local elections.
Oerd Bylykbashi, who co-chairs the special electoral reform commission, says that the opposition will demand a transition to a national proportional system with 100% open lists, including those of municipal councils for the 2027 local elections.
"I myself will advance the idea of opening the lists 100% in terms of local councils. Of course, it complicates the CEC process, but it increases democracy in relation to the voters' ability to vote," said the co-chair of the Electoral Reform Commission, DP, Oerd Bylykbashi.
Another proposal is to elect mayors in two rounds. Returning to the runoff system, which Albania applied until 2003 for Bylykbashi, guarantees that each mayor has the support of over 50% of the citizens who vote for him.
"A mayor should not simply belong to a political force, he should belong to the citizens. And a mayor who is elected with a simple majority; 20%, 30% of the votes because the vote is fragmented does not represent the will of the majority of citizens who seek solutions to their problems," said Bylykbashi.
Despite the balance between voting fairness and civic opportunity that a system guarantees, Bylykbashi says that it would fail if the separation of the party from the state is not guaranteed.
"Any system would fail if the state was not separated from the ruling party. The state would invade the elections, and it would destroy the standard of elections," Bylykbashi said.
After the breakdown of the consensus with the Socialists on territorial reform, Bylykbashi does not hide his skepticism that the same fate threatens electoral reform.
In addition to electoral reform, the Democrats are also demanding a parliamentary investigation into the May 11 elections, while they have warned of an escalation of opposition action in parliament and protests with citizens in the event of the unilateral approval of the two reforms. /tvklan.al
