Yesterday night, we got to see the selection of the first song of Eurovision 2020, “Shaj”, winner of the Festivali i Këngës. The Albanian broadcaster RTSH has now released the voting sheets used by the jurors during the final. We now know that the final results were a close call between “Shaj” and “Me Tana”, as well as how the international and national jurors voted.
The voting system
The voting system is presented on the voting sheets, and is quite close to the system used in Eurovision. Each juror had to rank the twelve songs of the final, and awarded points to each according to the following scale :
- 12th to 3rd : 1 to 10 points
- 2nd : 13 points
- 1st : 18 points
This method would tend to give more points to songs coming 2nd or 1st, since the gap between 1st place and lower ranks is bigger than in Eurovision, where a favorite gets 4 more points than a third, whereas in FiK 68, it earned 8 more points.
The results
The detailed results of the final are as follow :
| Rank | Singer | Song | Björk. | Kont. | Berg. | Minga | Pietro | TOTAL |
| 1st | Arilena Ara | “Shaj” | 10 | 13 | 13 | 13 | 18 | 67 |
| 2nd | Elvana Gjata | “Me tana” | 18 | 18 | 18 | 2 | 8 | 64 |
| 3rd | Sara Bajraktari | “Ajër” | 13 | 10 | 10 | 8 | 9 | 50 |
| 4th | Bojken Lako | “Malaseen” | 3 | 8 | 3 | 18 | 13 | 45 |
| 5th | Era Rusi | “Eja merre” | 8 | 9 | 9 | 10 | 7 | 43 |
| 6th | Kamela Islamaj | “Më ngjyros” | 6 | 6 | 4 | 9 | 10 | 35 |
| 7th | Albërie Hadërgjonaj | “Ku ta gjej dikë ta dua” | 7 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 27 |
| 8th | Valon Shehu | “Kutia e Pandorës” | 1 | 2 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 23 |
| 8th | Tiri Gjoci | “Me gotën bosh” | 2 | 4 | 8 | 6 | 3 | 23 |
| 10th | Robert Berisha | “Ajo nuk është unë” | 9 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 18 |
| 11th | Gena | “Shqiponja e lirë” | 4 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 18 |
| 12th | Olta Boka | “Botë për dy” | 5 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 17 |
Björk. = Christer Björksman ; Kont. = Dimitris Kontopoulos ; Berg. = Felix Bergsonn ; Minga = Mikaela Minga ; Pietro = Rita Pietro
As you can see, the victory of Arilena Ara was not a landslide, with “Me Tana” only three points behind the eventual winner.
International vs Albanian jurors
The most interesting aspects of the detailed results is the contrast between the international jurors (Björksman, Kontopoulos and Bergsonn) and the Albanian jurors.
Indeed, all three international jurors ranked “Me Tana” first, whereas the two Albanian jurors ranked Elvana Gjata’s performance 5th (for Pietro) and 11th (for Minga), scores which prevented it from reaching the first place.
However, the actual winner, “Shaj”, managed to create a good consensus within the jury, being in everyone’s podium, 2nd on average. Will it be true in the bigger contest too ?
What do you think ? Did you expect such contrasts between the jurors ? Can “Shaj” create a consensus among international jurors across Europe ? Do you think a televote could have changed the results ? Tell us more in the comments below or on social media at @escxtra !
