The leader of the only Macedonian party, Macedonian Alliance for European Integration, MAEI, Vasil Sterjovski, for the Albanian MCN assesses that “the current proportional electoral system is discriminatory and minorities must have guaranteed seats in order to hear their voice”.
“The best system is to take the best European practices from European countries that have solved the problem of minority representation, such as Croatia, Slovenia, Kosovo, Romania, the Scandinavian countries, the Russian Federation, etc., which have different models, but which have guaranteed seats for minorities. For the first time last year, an international organization such as the Council of Europe in the fifth monitoring report on Albania of the Advisory Committee for the Implementation of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities scanned the situation in Albania and asked our country to take positive measures for guaranteed representation of minorities in the parliament, Sterjovski says regarding the electoral reform and the demands of the minorities.
It is true, he adds, that they cannot better protect the interests and raise the problems of the minorities than their representatives in the parliament, and this has been shown in the last 30 years.
He reminds that the Macedonian, Roma, Vlach and Egyptian communities have submitted requests to the Special Commission for Electoral Reform, for guaranteed seats in the parliament, for which there must be political will, especially from the government and the parliamentary opposition.
“For example, in Croatia, Albanians, Macedonians, Bosniaks, Montenegrins have a guaranteed place. There are other models like in Romania despite the number of minorities, for example, officially there are 500 registered Albanians, their number is certainly higher, but officially according to statistics they are 500 people, but they have a guaranteed place. 5.000 Macedonians are registered and they have a guaranteed seat in the parliament. So there are different models. Mainly, the essence is that there is political will, that both the government and the opposition agree, he points out.
With the existing proportional regional system, Sterjovski emphasizes, it is very difficult to directly have deputies, to be elected to the parliament.
– This is because we, as minorities, live on the entire territory of the Republic of Albania, not only in special areas and those special areas where we are traditionally, especially after the 90s, we moved to the big cities of Albania for a better life and that is why it is really difficult with this system to be represented in the parliament. As small parties, we always try to make different coalitions with larger parties, he emphasizes.
He adds that thanks to these different coalitions, as a party representing the Macedonian community, they succeeded two years ago in his being a deputy in the Albanian legislature.
– We always try to find the coalition that will guarantee us a better place on the lists to be represented, but it is always difficult with the big parties that offer us places in the lower part of the lists. Therefore, precisely for this request of ours, we have the support of the Council of Europe, which recommends that it is ultimately an international obligation for us to have our voice in the parliament, Sterjovski answers.
When asked about MAEI’s coalition in the parliamentary elections in May 2025, he says that they expect an answer from the Special Commission for Electoral Reform regarding the demands, after which they will decide how they will act, pointing out that “our main goal that we want to what we can achieve is to be represented in the Parliament”.