After denouncing the elections, DP now aims to take a seat it did not win from a small party

Alongside efforts to annul the elections, the Democratic Party (DP) is also seeking to gain a parliamentary seat in Tirana by using legal technicalities to challenge the mandate won by the small liberal party Mundësia, led by former DP MP Agron Shehaj.

Why is this important: While publicly calling the elections a “farce” and demanding their annulment, DP is simultaneously working within the same legal framework it claims is rigged—this time to win over one of the only two seats won by Mundësia, a small party that ran independently. This legal challenge has raised concerns of political opportunism and hypocrisy, as DP appears less interested in systemic reform and more focused on gaining mandates it failed to win at the ballot box.

Context: The mandate in question would go to Ilir Alimehmeti, a physician and one of the most-voted DP open list candidates who narrowly missed out on securing a seat. DP’s legal team has announced plans to request a review of invalid ballots across the Tirana district, where more than 17,000 ballots were voided. The party argues that a recount or the removal from the count of certain voting centers could be enough to swing the result.

However, the two mandates won by Mundësia are widely seen as legitimate and transparent, including by election observers who raised no red flags during the vote count. Agron Shehaj has called the attempt a “desperate theft,” pointing out the contradiction in a party that accuses others of rigging the election while now attempting to reverse results at the table rather than the polls.

“You cannot scream about an alleged electoral farse and then try to steal a mandate at the table! This is hypocritical and it will not happen!” Shehaj declared.

This is not the only case. DP has launched legal appeals in several other districts, including Berat and Kukës, part of a broader strategy to contest the results in all 12 electoral zones—despite having presented no verifiable evidence of fraud. The campaign is viewed by many analysts as an effort to avoid confronting internal failures, including unpopular candidate lists and poor outreach to allies.

What’s next: Tirana is expected to be the final and most contentious front in DP’s post-election legal offensive. The party has vowed to exhaust every legal avenue before Albania’s Electoral College. Meanwhile, Shehaj’s party has said it will defend every vote, warning that attempts to overturn the result would amount to political theft.