ABSTRACT
This chapter presents Albanian profiles of longstanding democracies and of the European Union, and provides essential detail on history, electoral system, political parties and cleavages, and governments. Most Albanian elections since 1992 have been generally democratic, but those of 1996 and 2009 clearly did not meet democratic standards of fairness. Albania became independent from the Ottoman Empire in 1912 in the context of the Balkan Wars. Postwar Albania was a fully autarkic communist system led for four decades by Albanian Party of Labour Party Secretary Enver Hoxha. Albania has generally used a mixed-member proportional (MMP) electoral system since 1992, although for two elections a parallel system was used. In 2001 Albania changed its electoral system back to mixed-member proportional with as before under MMP 100 single-member majority seats and 40 party list seats. Albanian party politics contains a sharp divide between its two main parties, the centre-right Democratic Party founded in 1990 and the ex-communist Socialist Party founded in 1991.
