| Republican Party of Albania Partia Republikane e Shqipërisë |
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|---|---|
| Leader | Fatmir Mediu |
| Founded | 1991 |
| Headquarters | Tirana |
| Newspaper | Republika |
| Ideology | National conservatism[1] |
| Political position | Right-wing |
| Official colours | Purple, White, Yellow |
| National Assembly |
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| Politics of Albania Political parties Elections |
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The Republican Party of Albania (Albanian: Partia Republikane e Shqipërisë) is a right-wing, national conservative political party in Albania.
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The Republican Party of Albania was founded in January 1991 under the leadership of the writer Sabri Godo, who was also its first chairman. After the Democratic Party, this was the second party to be founded in Albania after the anti-communist revolution in the autumn of 1990. As the name suggests, the Republicans chose the U.S. Republican Party for their political role model. They arranged themselves as right of center on the political spectrum, slightly more right-wing than the Democratic Party of Albania.
After the parliamentary elections of March 1992, the first really free elections, in which the party gained 3.8 percent of the vote, it entered a coalition with the Democrats but had little influence on the policies being shaped. After the 1997 rebellion in Albania in which the Centre-Right coalition was overthrown by Socialist supporters the Party became the opposition party and aimed to try and restrict the power of the Socialists.
Before the 2001 elections, the party joined the Alliance for the victory (Alb. Bashkimi për Fitor) under the leadership of the Democratic Party of Albania. This combination of right-wing parties was aimed to dent the Socialist party of Albania and possibly bring the majority and bring about the change of government. This however happened in 2005 where the Republicans gained their highest number of seats ever due to the dissatisfication of many Albanian voters with the continuous feuds between the Socialists and Democrats over the previous months.
In the 2001 election it was part of the Union for Victory (Bashkimi për Fitoren) coalition which received 37.1% of the vote and 46 members of parliament. In the 2005 elections the Republican Party received 11 of the 140 seats, making it the third largest political party in the Albanian Parliament.
The party was certified by the Central Election Commission of having received the largest number of votes of any party for the party list, though it is generally accepted that this is due to votes having been transferred for strategic reasons by voters of the Democratic Party of Albania or by members of ballot counting teams.
It remained an ally of the Democratic Party of Albania, the leading party in the Victory Coalition, which also did well. The Democratic Party allied with the Socialist Movement for Integration formed the government after the elections of 2009.
In the Albanian local elections, 2011 the Republican Party of Albania won a total of 67,039 votes throughout the country, twice the amount they had received in the Albanian parliamentary election, 2009.[2]
The Republican Party of Albania has adhered to the agenda of the Republican Party (United States) and therefore its ideology is closely based on conservative, free market and many other right wing policies. Although its policies are considered to be National Conservative it also has several minor factions such as Social Conservatism and Populism which have almost disappeared under the leadership of Fatmir Mediu which has seen more right-wing policies such as National Conservatism emerge, as well as several Pro-European and Pro-Nato policies.
Though the party was originally founded as a conservative, Republican and generally anti-Communist and anti-Monarchist party which wanted reforms to speed up so democracy could be put in place more quickly, and founded as a alternative to the Democrats and the Socialist who were bickering between each other, it has usually been aligned with the Centre right Democrats, due to the fact that it was bitterly opposed to the Socialists who they regarded as Communists hiding under a more moderate Centre Left Trojan Horse, despite being more the right than the Democrats.
Although the party was initially Eurosceptic as it was part of the Eurosceptic group within the European Parliament, Alliance for Europe of the Nations[3], it has since then changed its stance on Europe and left the group in 2009 after adopting several Pro-European and Pro-NATO policies.
| Year | Seats | Number of total seats |
|---|---|---|
| 1992 | 1 | 140 |
| 1996 | 3 | 140 |
| 1997 | 0 | 155 |
| 2001 | 46 | 140* |
| 2005 | 11 | 140 |
| 2009 | 1 | 140 |
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