News: Albania: Edi Rama wins national elections, but the OSCE raises concerns

Edi Rama’s Socialist Party has won the national elections in Albania, confirming the incumbent Prime Minister for a fourth consecutive term. Rama secured 52.1% of the vote and 82 seats out of 140 in Parliament. However, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has stated that “our long-term observers witnessed widespread intimidation and pressure on voters, especially on public sector employees.” The OSCE report also highlights the “misuse of state resources” during the election campaign.

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas, and European Commissioner for Enlargement, Marta Kos, in a joint report, emphasized that the elections were managed in a “generally inclusive and transparent” manner. However, they noted that “due to the widespread use of administrative resources and the influence of institutions, it is possible that the ruling majority benefited from the advantage of holding public office.”

In their joint report, Kallas and Kos further highlighted that “media independence continues to be a problem, and the electoral coverage continued to focus on the main parties, while transparency regarding the funding of the electoral campaign remained limited.”

Photo credit: © European Union, 2025, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons