Synchronizing their announcement the last few days for “something big” that would shake the PD, and one day before the EU will respond to the position of the PD (as pro-government media report), Eduart Selami and Majlinda Bregu have publicly articulated what for a long time they have uselessly tried to sell as a position of doubt: an open opposition against the way in which Lulzim Basha is leading the PD.
Together with them, but apparently uncoordinated, another known PD figure, Jozefina Topalli, asked Basha to gather the party forum and analyze the decision and consequences of not participating in the June elections.
More or less known as opponents of the PD leader, Topalli has recently not only opposed Edi Rama, but also the new leadership of the PD. As one of the rare and strong voices of the PD in Parliament during these last 4 years, she perhaps rightfully demands to be more included in the decision making of the party.
Even though with different aims, Bregu and Selami, which have been more critical of Basha than of Rama, are united with Topalli in the absence of a coherent position of the PD as when Sali Berisha led the party.
Topalli has been Vice-Chair of the PD and de facto number 2 of the party since the “enemies” of Berisha were removed one by one from the parliamentary group, critical voices inside the party were silenced, and the National Council was more or less inexistent during the second mandate of Berisha’s government.
This doesn’t mean that the decisions taken by Lulzim Basha justify not gathering the party forums. Basha would do well to call them together and listen to them. But it seems that the PD leader has preferred to redesign the decision making structures by being spontaneous and consulting more with his allies and collaborators, which rather than in a hall of the Rogner Hotel or some café stay in the “Tent of Freedom,” the only place where the opposition has been for the last two months.
If Topalli, Bregu, and Selami had this idea, they should have had demanded it before and not haven taken part in the parliamentary sessions in the tent. Because of the parliament is in the tent, so it is the seat of the party.
I don’t want to believe that Topalli synchronized her position with Bregu and Selami’s. Not only because they belong to different political camps, but also for the simple fact that te Vice-Chair of the PD would never accept being used by segments of the majority or the PD to attack the leadership of the opposition.
But following the same logic, Bregu and Selami’s indignation about the absence of party forums is curious. It’s not as if Sali Berisha check with the party forumes when they were elected deputy of minister.
As personal choices of Berisha and as entrance through the door and exit through the window, those two know better than many others in the PD that when you serve the leader without conditions and without dignity you have two choices: in the best case they will rent with some post, in the worst you’re declared enemy and you won’t return to parliament.
While Selami has tasted this feeling when he left to the US for the first time, Bregu has enough political maturity to understand that being part of the opposition is conditioned by opposition positions.
Political flirting is truly a beautiful art, political position what forms you as a politician. Because there are many, me included, that even though they support the protest of the opposition have reservations with the election boycott.
But different from those who are an integral part of the PD, we others are just observers or commenters that try to influence in one way or the other the position of the opposition.
While those who pretend to part of it, getting angry with Lulzim Basha that he cares more about the judicial reform than the public should be better get used to no longer being part of the opposition. And that the crib of the future government is maybe large enough to take them in.
