The outcome of the Italian constitutional referendum, with the clear affirmation of the no vote, confirms a scorching political defeat for Matteo Renzi and forces him to resign as Prime Minister (and perhaps also as the Secretary of the Italian Democratic Party). But what changes in Albania?
After politicians such as Hillary Clinton and François Hollande, the “politically correct” left wing of the world loses yet another protagonist. Matteo Renzi was openly a friend of Edi Rama, with whom he shared not only the selfies but also a method of governing based on social media and propaganda, neglecting concrete results, which often have turned to be too minor compared to the expectations of their respective constituents.
That the Italian referendum turned into a referendum for or against the Renzi government is also a decisive political mistake of Italian Prime Minister. He was not obliged to call for referendum, but, thinking he could easily win, he wanted to use it to crush the internal opposition from his party.
The personalization of electoral contests is always dangerous, but even more so in the case of a referendum, especially in times of economic crisis.
In the Italian case, the majority of the population, tired from the long and deep economic crisis, is on the one hand dissatisfied and disillusioned by promises and announcements of reforms with almost imperceptible improvements but with obvious costs. And on the other hand, exasperated by excessive media presence of friends and acquaintances from the power system that Renzi has built around himself, whose merits are not always evident, the population turned the referendum into a unanimous condemnation of the government.
An Albanian parallel
These reasons of discontent are also very present in Albania, where Rama’s personalization of the political contest has begun long ago with his defense to the bitter end of each of his minister. They are almost all involved in one scandal or the other, but everyone one of them has always been defended by Rama who, in fact, has taken personal political responsibility for their actions.
The other aspect that the two political figures of Rama and Renzi have in common is their way of attacking the opposition as a way of diverting the attention from the actions of the government. Rama blatantly started to apply this method during the discussion on the judicial reform (looking at any cost to approve it by a majority so as to make it a defeat for the Democratic Party (PD)) and continues grotesquely with the attempt to charge the PD, who appealed the vetting law to the Constitutional Court, with the political cost for the non-initiation of EU accession negotiations.
But this air of protest against a method of government reduced to mere propaganda first led to the election of Donald Trump and then in Italy caused the massive vote against the constitutional reforms. And considering the fact that the trend often demonstrated by the Albanian politics is of ” copying” (even with some delays and some simplification) Italian political affairs, perhaps Renzi’s fall could be an indication for in the next Albanian parliamentary elections. And the one to benefit here may be a newly founded party Libra of Socialist Party dissident Ben Blushi, who is inspired by the system of Beppe Grillo’s 5 Star Movement.
