In an interview with Opinion on News24, writer and political analyst Fatos Lubonja commented on the opposition protest and the recent visits of the foreign ministers from the Netherlands and Germany.
I think that although the tent is right as regards its claims, it lacks the support of a popular movement, so the people at large and the internationals. The reasons for this I don’t know for sure, but I think that they are twofold: this opposition has been in power and has lost its credibility, whereas the internationals have put some sort of trust in this government and they are always lagging behind in diagnozing our ailments. This is how I see the support of the German minister.
The international factor for some time now has lost a sort of credibility, they care more about stability than about democracy. The internationals always give trust to the government, which means that the Albanians have to take the situation in their own hands.
Lubonja also sees this indiscriminate preference for stability of the international community in Germany’s response to the referendum in Turkey:
What can be called threats to democracy became more day after day. There exists an authoritarian tendency in Turkey that can have its own negative impact. After Erdoğan’s victory [German Chancellor] Merkel now seeks dialogue, which just means that they want to keep the stability.
Nevertheless, Lubonja admits, the current fragile political stability in Albania is to be chosen over the complete collapse of the state, as in 1997:
I think that it’s better that this governments stays for the moment and that we bring it down slowly, rather than another 1997 happening. The tent, [Libra leader Ben] Blushi, or the LSI, each of them has their own influence on the opposition.
