By Armand Shkullaku
Edi Rama’s march from “victory to victory” is being accompanied, as has usually happened, by the ugly phenomenon of punishing the loser and avoiding judgment for the winner. This is being seen even these days with the unprecedented victory of the Renaissance [Rilindja], which in a normal society would raise hundreds of questions about how it came and the risks it may bring in the future.
To summarize this event inside the shell of the cliché: Rama won because the opposition didn’t inspire trust, is at best intellectual laziness and at worst, alignment — service to power.
The loser, in any race, draws and assumes his responsibilities. In politics, much more so because those responsibilities directly affect the entire society. But the elites of a country, the voices that are not influenced by the euphoria of crowds but by the coldness of reason, do not rush to crucify the loser before analyzing the winner.
To focus at this hour on the opposition, thus unconditionally legitimizing a victory that smells fishy, means nothing more than aligning with the powerful by always blaming the weaker one.
This moral corruption of Albanian elites — sometimes from fear, sometimes from interest, and sometimes from lack of formation — apart from the communist era, has appeared with the same disgusting taste after the 1996 elections or those of 2001.
In the case of the last elections, perhaps the third (except those of 1992) where a political force wins over 80 mandates, a healthy elite should have raised to society the highly debatable issue of how it is possible that a party corroded during 12 years in power by high-level corruption, by strong ties with organized crime from the government to the police forces, with unfulfilled promises and an unprecedented erosion of the population, secures a fourth mandate with numbers that would be envied by any autocratic regime.
This debate should have been deeper than the kind that says: elections have always been rigged, that gangs and the administration have been used for 30 years, that if there is popular momentum, manipulations don’t matter, etc.
The existential issue for Albanian democracy lies in the fact that a power “that steals votes to steal Albania and steals Albania to steal votes” not only wins elections but suffocates every space of freedom, independence, fair competition, destroys institutions, eliminates justice and as a result endangers everyone’s future, including its own.
It has often happened that those close to power become enthusiastic about such victories, forgetting that they have often turned into victims of their own enthusiasm.
This willful forgetting leads to the current silence over the fact that for the first time in history, the opposition entered elections with its main leader in a criminal process, after being held isolated for a full year; with the head of the second opposition party in prison; and with several other figures behind bars or under criminal investigation.
Also, these were the third parliamentary elections where the government enters the race without having any opposition from any of the country’s main media outlets.
Not to mention the capture of justice, the monopoly over gangs and the money of big businesses.
By looking at the result of these elections, you also understand why Ilir Meta was dragged and beaten by masked police, or why Fredi Beleri was thrown in jail and the municipality of Himara taken hostage.
Such acts, beyond fear, also ruin the authority or trust that certain political figures may inspire.
They are devalued in the face of the violence of power and the remaining “ownerless” votes go to the stronger one.
The electoral meltdown of the LSI [Socialist Movement for Integration] in these elections is the projected effect of dragging Ilir Meta in front of the public eye.
Likewise, under the light of Edi Rama’s 82 mandates, one understands why “sacrifices” were made — from the former number two of the government, Ahmetaj, to the number two of the party, Veliaj.
The longer and heavier the power, the more its sacrifices weigh.
The more “independent” SPAK [Special Anti-Corruption Structure] becomes — in order to then certify the virginity of Edi Rama’s ruined elections.
The power of one man, who today excites his lackeys, has given the country the terrible illusion of a new justice, which never dared to touch the two pillars of evil: the executive decision-making that produces corruption and the stealing of elections.
A direct consequence of which is the cycle of stealing Albania for votes and vice versa.
If another victory like this of Edi Rama inevitably leads to the final destruction of justice, of the few remaining freedoms, of representative democracy and of every other power that should be independent, the concern of that part of society that still has a voice in the chapter should be the process against the winner — not the attack on the loser as a cover for the stain of flirting with power.
Long and absolute power usually feeds on its own heads, so those who today feel close to it should worry about the consequences of the fourth mandate and not so much about the responsibilities of the opposition.
With 82 mandates, plus a few more along the way, everyone may seem to Edi Rama like dice he throws whenever and however he pleases.