An electoral assembly that turns into an arena of flattery for the boss and messages that are repeated over and over. This is the way in which we can summarize what happened at yesterday’s assembly of the PS.
Only Gramoz Ruçi, whose infallible instincts saw bears down the road to the elections in June, seemed worried and prepared for the agenda that was announced for the meeting. His speech was a clear message to the basis and the regional directors, which in fact had gathered to listen to and conduct the spirit of the upcoming elections and no to listen to messages directed to either Lulzim Basha or Ilir Meta.
Those socialists are the true electoral engine of that party, which now for weeks have heard and reheard the refrain that “there will be no caretaker government,” and that their coalition partner LSI is close or far away from the future coalition. They understand that they will not be asked about this coalition, because Edi Rama and Ilir Meta will decide whether they will enter the elections together elsewhere. This can be decided neither in the stadium in which Edi Rama holds yet another speech, not in Kuçovë where Ilir Meta is dancing around with the local youth.
To prepare the party organization for the elections while still talking about how “we found Albania 4 years ago” or still bothering with “what Sali Berisha said” shows clearly that you’re either not very sure about victory and that you will win the majority of votes in the coalition, or all the socialists in the room see more clearly than anyone in the leadership that the last months of your four-year government’s divorce from reality dominates in every single political crisis.
To declare once again that there will be no caretaker government, that will you will enter the elections even without opposition, or that you again pick at your unclear ally in the decision about he upcoming elections is an unnecessary cacophony in a room with clear socialist activists that don’t need to be motivated with stories about the democrats’ tent or petty exchanges with the LSI.
The ridiculous flattery and praise for the prime minister, minister, or other officials look as if they’ve become cliches in a party that today no longer can hide its internal rivalries. Even though Edi Rama tries to sit before the meeting for a coffee with Erion Veliaj and Saimir Tahiri, there are no longer any socialists who don’t feel in one way or the other the undeclared rivalry between them. The staff and a part of the media have now become part of this rivalry that threatens to take on new proportions after the confirmation of the majority after the June elections.
If you look a bit back in time, you notice that every second mandate of the PS has been like this, filled with rivalry that have led to the inevitable fragmentation of the party.
So for all those speeches of yesterday at the Assembly, more than a message and inspiration for socialists coming from all over Albania they were a media show with a central direction that clearly outlined not only the rivalry between Veliaj and Tahiri in the PS, but also the ridiculous match of who pleases Edi Rama most – those will have a certain place as candidate on the election list, or even as future minister.
Because, so it seems, the masters and doctorates of the new elite of the PS have not forgotten the old communist theories and the diary of the imaginary hero of the Chinese Revolution, comrade Lei Feng, who wrote: “Chairman Mao is like father, Mao Zedong Thought is like the sun. Father takes care of me all the time, and the sun nurtures me to grow up…”
