After a lot of empty banter the major parties are preparing themselves to face their tasks in the new parliamentary season. On this parliamentary eve, the LSI sent some signals to the PD to organize a common opposition against the government. Two days ago, the PD gave a worrying answer, which together with the LSI request best explains the core of Albanian politics.
According to a PD deputy, the LSI is a “presidential” party, whereas PD has the chromosomes of the opposition. That’s why it should lead the opposition, and moreover the LSI has to show its remorse over its coalition with the PS, go through the necessary catharsis, show that it wants to be in the opposition, and above all embrace a political morality.
For anyone who has a bit of knowledge about politics it is difficult to understand how this LSI–PD debate cold stop or even just limit the consolidation of the absolute power of a clique that every day is increasingly transforming into a populist autocracy worthy of some lost third-world country.
Both the PD and LSI have shown recently that they are not sincerely “oppositional,” by simply creating a small hindrance for some government action in order a something equally small from it. Now it seems as if they are fighting about the right to have some title – “leader of the opposition” – which in fact can only be given by the people.
In a normal country, the events of the last few months that culminated into the unexpectedly broad victory of the PS, politics should have reflected on its mistaken political actions and decisions, and on the necessary correction to regain the trust of a number of citizens that is sufficient to win the next elections.
In order to this, to start from the “supposition of sanctity” – after the agreement with Rama, while the technical ministers are still in power and the failed strategy of protecting the vote through them has created enormous distrust among the electorate – doesn’t seem like the best idea.
In fact, it would be much better to discuss what it means to “be in the opposition,” and to discuss what each political actually has to offer.
It would be much better to offer a true analysis of the problems of the country and above all the democracy that is currently in agony. An agreement on principles about how to fix the constitutional and institutional catastrophes caused by the PS–PD agreements over the years should be the beginning, and it is undeniable that the LSI has always opposed those, even in the period that they only acted out of self-interest.
It would also be much better to analyze how something new could be offered to the Albanians – how the deputies could be elected by the people; how the internal democracy of the parties could be guaranteed; how to create an international support network to counteract the powerful lobbying of Edi Rama; how to limit the corruptive power of the oligarchs; how to build an economical and social model that would prevent the massive emigration of the people.
An opposition coalition would only make sense to cross this part of the road, otherwise it is nothing more than a protest coordination committee. But maybe for them, being in opposition simply means to protest.
And that’s how we’re opening another season of absurdity, with worn-out courtesan posing as pristine virgins accusing each other of immorality, if indeed virginity still is a valid argument for the current political class.
Opposition is waged with consistency and ideas, by working to understand what the government is doing and clearly denouncing that things are not going well and damaging the public interest, while proposing alternative, reasonable solutions to the problems.
But it seems that in Albania the opposition is conceptualized as a noble title – when the ruler dies, the title is inherited, and you only have to watch out for your brothers. If that day will ever come – because Rama is still young.
