Albania's prime minister Edi Rama has secured an unprecedented fourth term in power as his Socialist Party sailed to victory in Sunday's parliamentary election, a near complete vote count showed on Tuesday.

With 94 percent of ballots counted, the Socialist Party (PS) had 52 percent of the votes, ahead of the second-placed Democratic Party (PD) with 34 percent, official figures from the election commission showed.

The state election commission is due to announce full results on Tuesday.

If confirmed, the result would mark an improvement on the last election when PS got 49 percent, and it would give Rama a comfortable majority to form a government.

It would also enable him to continue working to honour his pledge to bring Albania into the European Union by 2030, although many experts say that timeline is optimistic.

Gaining West’s support

Rama, in power since 2013, was the favourite to win, bolstered in part by an influential network built up over 12 years in power, a recent period of healthy economic growth and a fractured opposition.

But the scale of victory has surprised some analysts who had expected that internal unrest would dent Rama's lead.

Instead, the resounding win looks set to prolong a sense of predictability in Albania in contrast to other Balkan countries such as Kosovo, Serbia and Bulgaria, where ruling parties have faced political crises over the past year.

"No one expected there to be a qualified majority for a single party. It is like (Hungary's Prime Minister) Orban in his best days," said political analyst Lutfi Dervishi.

PS is on course to win 82 seats in the 140-seat parliament while PD would get 51 seats, local Top Channel TV said.