Albanians voted in parliamentary elections today, with Prime Minister Edi Rama seeking a fourth term after a campaign dominated by promises of joining the European Union (EU) and accusations of widespread corruption, Reuters reports.
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Polling stations closed at 19 p.m. Results will be announced by Tuesday, said Election Commission President Ilirjan Čelibasi.
Rama, who has been in power as head of the Socialist Party (PS) since 2013, is the favorite to win against his old rival, former Prime Minister Sali Berisha of the Democratic Party (PD), partly supported by an influential network built during his 12 years in power, according to Reuters.
But opposition to Rama has grown in the past year over his alleged crackdown on the opposition, including Berisha, while Rama has endured a series of scandals of his own. This includes the arrest this year of his ally, Tirana Mayor Erion Velijaj, on corruption and money laundering charges.
Rama spent last Sunday reiterating his pledge that the country will join the EU by the end of the decade, although some experts doubt that timeframe will be possible given the reforms required to join the bloc, including rooting out corruption.
An exit poll, for the Tirana-based news portal Albanian Post and Kosovo-based TV Klan Kosova, showed Rama's party winning 51,8 percent of the vote or 79 seats in the 140-member parliament, and Berisha's 38 percent or 54 seats.
Berisha said the poll was pro-Ramina, Reuters reports.
Three television stations told Reuters they had decided not to publish exit polls, citing procedural or legal issues.
Opinion polls show Rama getting up to 50 percent of the vote, and Berisha up to 35 percent. Rama may need help from smaller parties to maintain his parliamentary majority.
"Today, the Albanian people... will give us all the strength we need for Albania to become the next European member state," Rama said after the vote.
Berisha also supports Albania's EU aspirations and has promised to fight corruption and increase wages.
"It will be a new summer day for Albanians," he told Reuters.
Around 200.000 Albanians living abroad voted today, marking the first time the diaspora has been included in the process.
Many young voters are particularly tired of Berisha and Rama, who have led the country in different roles since the fall of communism in 1990. They point to the vast income inequality in Albania that leaves some people driving around Tirana in expensive Range Rovers while others live in cramped Soviet-era apartments.
"I will vote for new politicians, because those like Rama and Berisha have been here for three decades and are only changing themselves," Arber Kazimi (21) said earlier.
Some other voters abstained or wanted to join the hundreds of thousands of Albanians who have emigrated over the past decade, many of them to nearby EU countries.
By some measures, Rama has done well. Annual economic growth of over four percent for the period 2022-2024, driven by trade with the EU and a tourism boom, has outpaced other Balkan countries, the World Bank says.
But corruption remains a huge problem, experts say, run by criminal gangs that earn billions of euros from drug and arms trafficking abroad and bring that money back to Albania to launder.
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