Elmi Haziri from the Alliance of Albanians warned that half of the ethnic Albanian voters in Macedonia actually live abroad. Haziri, whose party is from the opposition, said that Albanians make the bulk of the masses of people who are emigrating from Macedonia.

Macedonians are leaving too, but mostly it’s Albanians. Almost half of the Albanian electorate is now out of Macedonia, Haziri said.

He acknowledged that because of this, ethnic Albanian members of Parliament are elected with far less votes than the Macedonian representatives. This is especially dire in the 6th electoral district, the only majority Albanian district in Macedonia, where 5-7 thousand votes are sufficient to elect a member of Parliament. In other districts it can take as many as 10,000 votes for a single seat.

This is why a group of VMRO-DPMNE and smaller parties are calling that the current six districts are abolished in favor of a single electoral district that would fairly distribute all votes cast in the country. Haziri says that his party wants to see eight electoral districts instead.