Tirana (Albania), 12 May (LaPresse/AP) – With a quarter of the votes counted, the Socialists of outgoing Prime Minister Edi Rama have won 53% of the vote, followed by the centre-right coalition led by Sali Berisha's Democratic Party with 35%. With these numbers, the Socialist Party will win the 71 seats needed to govern alone. Preliminary turnout in yesterday's elections was nearly 42.16%, down 4% from four years ago. Approximately 3.7 million voters in Albania and abroad cast ballots to elect 140 members of parliament for a four-year term. Due to mass emigration, the country of 2.8 million inhabitants has around 3.7 million voters. For the first time, members of the diaspora, around 191,000, were able to vote by post.
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