Albania’s ruling Socialist Party has won the country’s parliamentary elections, according to a near-complete vote count, securing Prime Minister Edi Rama an unprecedented fourth term in office.

With about 96 percent of ballots counted, the official results on Tuesday showed the Socialist Party got 82 seats in the 140-seat parliament with 52 percent of the votes.

The opposition centre-right Democratic Party secured 51 seats with 34 percent of votes. Three other small parties will take the rest of the seats.

The threshold for entry into the assembly in Albania is one percent for parties and five percent for party alliances.

The full results are expected later on Tuesday. If confirmed, the results would be an increase from the last election, where Rama’s party won 49 percent of the vote, and would give him a majority to form a government.

The Central Election Commission, the electoral executive, has said that by law, the final results come out 48 hours after the vote ends.

The results may be delayed following a request of the opposition not to consider about 53,000 ballots mailed from the diaspora in neighbouring Greece, claiming they are manipulated.

For the first time, those in the diaspora could cast postal votes. About 195,000 mailed in their votes.

Eligible voters in Albania and abroad voted to elect 140 lawmakers for a four-year mandate in the Balkan nation. Because of mass emigration, the country of 2.4 million people has a total of nearly 3.7 million eligible voters.

 Credit: aljazeera.com

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