After the successful event on Saturday, the “angry citizens” of the Democratic Party (PD) continue to meet under the tent. Two or three times a day Lulzim Basha goes around to harangue the crowd, introducing new guests participating in the protest, and especially confirming the position of no return: either a technical government to guarantee free elections, or nothing.
Some other citizens are joining the crowd of all ages and with a common denominator of the lower income bracket, but it’s still not an irrepressible wave. The first warm spring days will bring many more people, but the air is missing the vibration of a big event.
Other positions are taken up as well, for example by Libra leader Ben Blushi, who ultimately hopes that Basha will do the job for him. But, departing from a questionable and self-proclaimed virginity in politics, he states that “there is no place for me under the Berisha’s tent.” Probably he is not the only one.
The problem is that the people continue to look for the great leader to free them from thieves. But to be believed it is necessary that the candidate is a virgin, and here, political virgins are very few. The old leadership of the PD certainly is not part of them. Ultimately, Blushi has the same problem, but in the meantime he tries to ignore it.
Basha’s sacrifice
Paradoxically, in order to be able to convince all the people to get involved in the protest, Basha should eliminate any doubt that this protest is a concoction of former party leader Sali Berisha, by announcing that no candidate deputy will be part of the old leadership, that they will all be part of civil society, and maybe, even guaranteeing that he himself will not run. If this happened, he would remain the real leader of the movement that changed the situation in Albania, and his political career would be relaunched on a more genuine and credible basis than the present one.
On television debates the main arguments are obviously the technical government and the vetting, but behind those the speeches we see details emerge that the disinformation machine of the government has so far cleverly disguised, and that the opposition is just not able to communicate: throughout the history of the judicial reform, the PS has cheated many times by unilaterally changing draft laws, approving by a majority seven judicial reform laws that it had promised only to pass with consensus. It tried in every way to protect his government from the power of vetting, while always hiding behind the international pressure.
Now Prime Minister Rama argues that the opposition is just trying to sabotage the vetting of judges. Maybe this is indeed true, but this vetting that was supposed to be implemented at all cost has in fact slipped (thanks to the PS’s tricks) into hands of the government and is no longer “guaranteed” by the balance negotiated in Parliament.
Once again the history of Albanian politics is repeated: who is at an advantage wants to use this advantage not in order to govern, but to win big and eliminate the opponent. And those on the losing side can either succumb or turn their backs and leave.
The situation is in fact blocked because Basha has cut the paths of possible retreats: either get the technical government, or both he and his party will be erased forever.
Rama’s strategy
Meanwhile Rama is forced to drink a coffee with PDIU deputy Aqif Rakipi and request the intervention of international friends, who will slowly begin to understand what has really happened: they were used as a shield and now their representatives are in deep partisan trouble. They alone will ultimately be likely to foot the bill.
But to deflect the threatening governmental crisis, Rama is using (and depleting) the main weapon that he has against Basha and his request for “electoral truce”: the Central Election Commission (KQZ), which he has employed in a vigorous (and illegal) resistance against the decriminalization of the current parliament.
If the KQZ succeeds in blocking the termination of the mandates of other deputies, such as Rakipi, who have clearly been involved in criminal activities in the past, Rama will be able to continue to ignore Basha while simultaneously proving that he is right, meaning that the elections cannot be guaranteed by a state body which deliberately ignores law the to help the Prime Minister keep his majority in Parliament.
And if the government (hiding behind the internationals) continues to insist on vetting, and Basha continues to insist on a technical government, the end result will just be a grotesque election with a single participating coalition, launching the country into a spiral of instability. And Rama, although he will have won the elections, will have won nothing and will even be recognized by all as the main responsible for the disastrous situation created.
Rama’s sacrifice
But Rama, as we have seen for Basha, could usefully play the sacrifice move.
Ultimately, there are still four months until the election, and in this situation his government cannot reach any political goal. But if he sacrificed his post as Prime Minister, resigning to ensure the country’s free elections, this would put him in the privileged position of determining in detail the technical government, which would also be able to blame others for the obvious shortcomings of his government. This would allow him to accomplish an appreciable election result. In the same move, he would have successfully challenged the popular assumption that he is arrogant.
And so in just a few months he may be back where he is now.
