Fatmir Xhafaj was the sole true Socialist in the Rilindja governments. Among the Oltas, Ogertas, Etildas, Senidas, Damians, Saimirs, and Ditmirs, Xhafaj was the first Minister whom Edi Rama handpicked from the historical bedrock of the Socialist Party, in stark contrast to all the other indistinguishable carbon copies the PS produced. What Fatmir Xhafaj brought to the cabinet was not an eagerness to compete over who best imitates and serves the boss, but, instead, a years-long political investment in the Socialist Party and its previous governments. He came into power as Minister of Interior Affairs with his own authority and public persona, instead of as merely the next clone to come out of the Prime Minister’s atelier. He represented the Socialist Party within the Rilindja government.
Or, rather, the Socialist Party’s end under the Rilindja government. His political fate is a document of how the Socialist DNA unraveled in its coupling with the Rilindja race. The Socialist Party had lost its identity since Edi Rama took over its reins. It transformed from a party meant to represent the poor working class to a businessmen’s club, a group of people joined by interest, rather than any beliefs or ideology. What used to be an open party, became the party of the leader, and, eventually, a nest of traffickers, thugs, ignorants, abusers, and bootlickers. With the Rilindja, merit-based political competition was out and interest-based service was in. All one has to do is to look at both Rama governments, parliamentary groups, and mayors. The PS-Rilindja crossbreeding engendered a new species, one without any political experience or responsibility, often known only for its criminal record, thirsty for money and power, with no identity, and unwilling to be stopped by the law.
Fatmir Xhafaj became Minister of Interior Affairs as a representative of this new half-breed party created by Edi Rama. He may have been a Socialist, as a testament of the movement’s history, but he was not one in the time of the Rilindja. Deep within the heart of the system, inside its most important mechanism, Xhafaj could not have been any different. All his years of political investment were branded with the Rilindja stamp. If he was still remembered as a Socialist in the parliament or party, upon entering the government he was baptized as a “rilindas.”
In this context, it is not hard to see why the Minister of Interior Affairs today finds himself in the eye of the storm. He is not seen as someone who only made a mistake or looked the other way for his brother, he is seen as the blood brother of those sinners who do not know how to govern without getting their hands dirty. He already has the Rilindja curse. He was the successor of a Minister who stands trial today, accused of being part of a structured criminal organization. He is the head of a State Police that traded in their blue uniform for the cannabis green one. He is part of a political structure in which MPs, mayors, and high officials have criminal records and strong ties to organized crime. He is a Minister of a government whose corruption is infamous in Europe.
Now the Minister of Interior Affairs in such a government has a brother who has been convicted of international drug trafficking in Italy, and is currently living as a free citizen in the country where he is Minister. The brother is accused by the opposition, based on a wiretap recording, of continuing his criminal activity undisturbed by the Vlora police. Even if this was proved to be untrue, for a normal Minister, of a normal government, in a normal country, it would be enough to be asked a simple question: Mr. Minister, what will you do with your brother, who, as you now know, has been convicted in Italy and now lives in Albania as a free man? This question is asked to a Minister who is filling the shoes of someone who, today, is being accused of that same crime, international drug trafficking. The only response is the arrest of his brother or resignation.
That would be the “Socialist” response, that of political responsibility, of public morality, and of respect for oneself and one’s years-long investment. The responsibility of a politician who takes firm decisions in hard times, of someone who built his career on merit and values those who elected him. Someone interested in maintaining his high standards, rather than a temporary office. Whereas the Rilindja response would be one of dodging responsibility, of petty justifications like “the opposition’s mud-slinging, I wasn’t aware, they are cousins ten-times-removed, there is no extradition request from Italy, I don’t know why my brother operates under two different names, I didn’t do anything illegal, etc.”
Fatmir Xhafaj hasn’t spoken yet. When he does, will it be as the next Rilindja clone, or as the last Socialist in the Rilindja? That is his own personal dilemma, but also his public responsibility. At the same time, it is the curse of the cult he chose to join.
