By Alfred LELA
There is a tendency of the votes, so far, in favor of Edi Rama.
A tendency that speaks of the opposition’s loss and of the government’s victory.
It still remains unclear how the mini-parties of Shehaj, Lapaj-Shabani, and Qori will reach the finish.
What is clearly seen is that Tom Doshi with PSD will be the third party in Albania, becoming a kingmaker.
Even though, as it seems, a kingmaker who cannot make a king,
because on neither side of the spectrum will there be a need for him to make a government.
Doshi might come in handy only if Rama gets close to a crushing majority with which he threatens to change the Constitution.
The Socialists will feel triumphant these days and the Democrats resigned.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Albania has lost in this case.
Not that PD-ASHM has lost, but that in elections like yesterday’s, the same way, any coalition would have lost, and the victory could only have belonged to Edi Rama.
Why?
The manuals of world politics do not yet recognize a politician who wins without a program.
Rama’s rhetoric has avoided the offer and focused on a geopolitical speculation: EU membership,
which, first of all, is a nationwide goal—all parties agree on integration—
but also is not in the hands of the government.
The decision for it is made not only based on criteria fulfilled or not by Albania,
but also by a difficult conclave of EU member states, each of them with the power of veto.
On the other hand, Rama has offered a repertoire of jokes, insults, and bullying,
but this is not the main typology of his campaign.
The Prime Minister has used without hesitation, without fear, without limitation, the state machinery in service of the electoral agenda.
Clearly on his side have also been the gangs, from south to north.
The thugs in the yard of the voting center in Vorë yesterday are not a sign of a normal Albania,
they are a recycling of a political dramatization that has been shown time and again, according to the principle ‘the goal justifies the means’.
If the thugs of Vorë say they are ‘citizens’,
recall the case of Jurges Çyrbja, who entered Rama’s list by order of the local gangs.
Not only the peripheries have been criminalized and distorted the electoral reality.
Whoever watched TV yesterday faced grotesque and dramatic scenes right in the heart of Tirana.
High directors of the administration, with black caps, customs fat-bellied men, feline MPs of the government,
cross-legged women, etc., etc., were caught on camera running, hiding, baring teeth, threatening in broad daylight.
The case of the illegal PS electoral office at Unit 5 is the surface sign that elections in Albania are not competition, not challenge, not program;
they are war to not let go of power—a goal in itself of the power.
In this sense, it can be repeated that, with such elections, the victory goes and will go to Edi Rama.
What remains with us even after this victory/defeat is the return of these kinds of elections to some form of normality.
Whoever still preserves the faculty of shame in their conscience, felt troubled yesterday by the scenes with main protagonists being people of the administration and local gangs, now turned into national assets by Edi Rama.
The winners may laugh, but they are producing nothing more than a grimace at the expense of Albania.
Depopulation and criminalization will remain, even after May 11, two major national challenges.
Even more so, because, paradoxically or not, the elections were taken by the party that normalized both depopulation and criminalization. (Syti Tv)