Voting Analysis – Two ballads, two small countries. Albania achieved its best result a week ago, when Rona Nishliu came 5th. Estonia repeated their good place from Moscow and came 6th. Both entries were entirely performed in the national language. But who voted for the two entries? And why?
Who Voted For Albania?
A first look at the map shows that Albania got a big chunk of its points from countries around the Adriatic Sea. All countries that gave Albania high points have a big Albanian diaspora. Especially Macedonia, Switzerland and Italy, which all awarded 12 points to Albania, but also Austria, Belgium, Montenegro and Germany have large immigrant groups especially from the Kosovo, where Rona Nishliu was born. Other points came from fellow Muslim countries Bosnia-Herzegovina and Turkey. These are the facts, but we should also take into consideration that Albania was usually not a country which profited from diaspora or block voting too much and people actually voted for the performance not for the country. Additionally the song has probably been supported by juries as well. Anke Engelke, head of the German jury, revealed on live television that she really liked the song and voted for it for instance.
Who voted for Estonia?
A first look at the map tells us that the Estonian song was mostly liked by Western and Northern Europe, while the South-East of the continent is completely red, which means Ott Leplands ballad got no points there at all. We can notice that countries close to Estonia, such as Finland, Latvia, Sweden and Lithuania were very generous. The Irish 8 points are not surprising as Ireland usually goes for ballads and there is also an Estonian diaspora in Ireland.
Additionally Iceland, France and Slovakia awarded 10 points to the small Baltic country. High points also came from neighbors Russia, Norway, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal. The only of the Nordic countries that completely ignored Estonia was surprisingly Denmark.
All in all an impression I had in other contests as well has been reinforced here: Estonia is voting-wise no longer an Easter European country, but a Northern European country. I don’t think “Kuula” did as well as it did because of Block voting. The map shows that there seems to be a different taste when it comes to this king of music in South-Eastern and in North-Western Europe.
Comparing the Albanian ballad with the Estonian ballad we can say that in general, where Estonia did well, Albania did not and vice versa.
See our last Voting Analysis:
My televote for Rona was pointless :’(
4 out of my 5 votes were “wasted” on the night of the final, namely: the F.Y.R. of Macedonia, Iceland, Estonia and Turkey, none of them got a single point from Greece
Thankfully my 3 votes for Albania were worth casting them
One of the thumbs down on my comment above is from myself due to bad use of the english language
LOL Don’t be so critical with yourself.
LOL awww…
Your English doesnt seem that bad compared to mine, I’m English and my spelling is atrocious, but then again I’m also dyslexic.
The statitics on Albania prove exactly my point and let’s leave it there.
Estonia on the other hand had zero penetration to the south and the balkans in general..Estonia is indeed more of a northern European country by now rather than an ex soviet one (and in cultural and political terms as well that is imo) and thus it’s not surprising that they have little support usually from the east.
but then Albania got 10 from Belgium and a top 5 from Finland… you have to give it to the juries from these two countries!
Not something I am proud of honestly (about Belgium..)
yeah but I voted for it and France gave it nil, but our jury was hugely shit so no surprises…
Rona was heavily voted at our party and I was so happy when we gave good points to Albania.
During the vote it soon looked like there was a top 5 above everyone else I was just delighted for Albania and I was hoping Rona would steal the 4th place to Azerbaijan, a very boring song with a very awful live… but 5th is still awesome
Azerbaijan had an awful live ? Sabina’s performance truly gave me the chills..
I voted for Azerbaijan too. Sabina was 5th on my list. I have a feeling that we will disagree a lot this year. Btw, when can we expect your final commented ranking? I have just finished Iceland in 12th place. Only 11 more to go. Croatia is next.
Yeah it looks like we’ll disagree a lot, which is always shocking considering we’re like twins with the same brain when it comes to Eurovision but, in the end, we will share Albania and Estonia in top 2 and all is well… and I doubt we’ll disagree in the bottom 10 :p
We can exchange juries anytime
! At least we gave some points to Ireland and Spain so my votes were not wasted hopefully !
That is exacty not my point… Estonia is a ballad that appeals more to the North and the North-East (Russia, Lithuania, Latvia), while Albania is more a ballad that appeals to the South-East (Italy, Greece, Turkey). Cultural, not neighbourly
It’s an equal mixture of both imo, apart from personal taste that is..
Both of them deserved the placings they got, I was disapointed with the UK that didnt give Albania and I dont think either Serbia any points. But then again I did perfer Slovenia’s Ballad and Macedonia was good.
I love both songs and performances … perhaps I am the perfect European? LOL
Anyway, before we jump to conclusions, we should wait for the split results to be published … if the EBU publishes them at all.
yeah they’re my top 2 I think I am also a mix of both, as France is!
Both songs were great and their results were well-deserved, I’m happy for both.
‘Kuula’ pleased the Portuguese voters more than the Albanian entry. Estonia got our 12 pts in their semi. I voted for the Albanian entry. I chose to vote for Serbia intsead of Estonia after having heard the new Estonian version.
Serbia is my third behind the other two you named, but I chose to only vote once and it was of course going to be Albania!
I have just finished Serbia in 9th place on my list. BiH is next.
Btw, I really, really love 14 songs this year. What a fantastic vintage!
i have 19 songs above 50%, which is an average result, but yes, from 15th to 14th there is a high jump from like 54% to 68% as well, so I guess we will agree on liking 13 songs in common, then it’s just our ranking that will be subjectively different!
Things still change on my list while I go up my post-grand final ranking. Only 5 more songs to go and Croatia is still in 1st place, BiH 2nd and Serbia 3rd. … Kaliopi is still waiting to be ranked. Gosh, the FYR countries really rocked this year.
except for Slovenia, which should get the Barbara Dex award imo
Poor Eva lags behind all the other FYR countries in 26th place on my list. Btw, here is what I have written on the dress: “They tried to stress Eva’s innocence by dressing everyone in white but ended up with a stage presentation that looked just terribly tacky and rather dated. In the last couple of years, most successful ESC acts have been normally or even casually dressed and thus I guess that the times of the gala gowns are over. If I voted in the Barbara Dex awards, this is where my vote would go.”
LOL
and once more, we agreed (a)
My guess is that the jury 12 points from Sweden went for Estonia. The same goes probably for most of the Northern European countries. With 100% televoting, I think Estonia would have scored pretty low, and that Ott would have been the Harel Skaat of the year. I did actually believe that before the final too. I’m very glad that I was wrong.
And Sweden has also a big Albanian diaspora, so I expected Rona to score pretty well here. The single point does maybe prove though that the Albanians in Sweden has become too assimilated in Swedish music taste. Very pity, since “Suus” is the best Albanian entry ever.
If there is such a huge Albanian diaspora in Sweden we may want to congratulate the fact that the impact of diaspora failed to influence heavily the result..(of course there is nothing wrong with the Swedish music taste – it was approved heavily by Europe this year at least)
Well,Albania certanly won me over with the live performance in the semi and in the final,even though it wasn’t among my big favorites.Estonia was never a song i loved and the live performance was really disappointing IMO.I knew Estonia wouldn’t get any points from Greece for one more reason.A ballad titled “Kuula” sounds funny in Greek.I also think that those 2 are songs that did better in certain parts of Europe and were ignored in other parts for both cultural and neighbouring/diaspora reasons.
“enculé” in French is a very bad slang word, and he keeps ore or less saying it, so I thought France wouldn’t go for it too, and we gave it 10pts! and there is NO estonian diaspora in France
‘Kuula’ doesn’t resemble any German word. The closest you can get is Kuh (cow) but then you are left with a ‘la’. Well, I guess that Ivi would be more than happy to squeeze a homeless leftover ‘la’ into her song. One more ‘la’ wouldn’t make much difference anyway …
lol
“Kula” means bullet in Swedish, which they joked about in the preview show.
I know what “encule” means more or less but “Kula” is a funny Greek female name and the day after esc there were many satirical shows that made fun of that.Plus,i didn’t say that EVERY country that voted for “Kuula” did it because of disapora.
What does encule mean in English, it be great to learn some French Slang.
well literally it means “fucked in the ass” but it’s used to insult someone (quite homophobic when you think about it lol)
Good article. But who voted for Azerbaijan?
I did.
Despite whatever geopolitical/neighbor or diaspora voting I am glad my #2 and #3 this year , ended up 5th and 6th on the 26th of May !
Well done Europe !
About the jury voters, when will all their identities and points be revealed?
Well, “Kuula” has Spanish, English and Russian versions as well floating around the internet….maybe that helped a bit.
I really wish eurovision is broadcasted here in Indonesia. Can u guys work on that?
Hooo…. and i love most of albanian entries, especially Rona and Juliana Pasha.
And yeah, Ott Lepland’s Kuula is great song too.