By: HENRI ȉLI
Finally, Edi Rama has plainly articulated the essence of his political offer for the June 28th general elections. During a most popular televised program, the leader of the Socialist Party made public, in detail, his full political profile and the program of the party he chairs.
In short, Rama’s offer could be defined as an experiment, a great experiment. There are at least three reasons why Rama and his political offer represent an experiment.
The first reason is the fact that his political conduct at the head of the SP has also been experimental. A different opposition, a uni-centric model of a Socialist Party. In other words, an exceptionally focused leadership. This has almost entirely transformed the profile of the Socialist Party, from a party of several centres of power, into a party where he decides and where he bears full responsibility. Having transformed the SP into a uni-centric party, Rama is experimenting by launching this political force into an electoral battle so differently from any other time. While the DP has always gone into this battle as a uni-centric party and has tasted both success and failure, the participation of an SP of this nature in elections presents a fundamental experiment for this political force.
Second, the Albanian Left itself faces a major experiment. Rama has actually stretched beyond the establishment of a uni-centric socialist party, to the creation of a uni-centric Left, anchored on the biggest leftwing party, the SP. Thus, through the strategy of amending the Constitution and the Electoral Code, he has exported into the political spectrum what he has done in his own party. The changes to the Constitution and the Electoral Code artificially discourage every other leftwing force currently competing in the electoral market outside of the SP alliance, such as the SMI, as well as any other future political alternative. For the first time, all the supporters of the Albanian Left face an unprecedented dilemma: if their votes are to have any value, they should vote, really, for the one party- the SP. And they would be voting for the SP of Edi Rama today and the SP of the next leader in the future.
Third, the great experiment is the program. In essence, this program reinstates the welfare state. This ambitious program aims at changing the structure of the Albanian economy, the very concept of growth and development. And all of this will be achieved via policies of intervention of the State, according to Edi Rama. The Rama Program foresees that the State must play a far greater role. And all of this via policies of state intervention according to Edi Rama.
On the social plane, that of social cohesion, education and healthcare, Edi Rama proposes just as many interventions, full or partial subsidies. This “enormous intervention”, makes this great undertaking an equally great experiment, considering the massive amount of money this is all going to take; who and where these funds will come from in conditions of “no tax rises” – as Rama clearly states.
However, this does not mean that an “experiment” is necessarily something that fails from an electoral point of view. Packaged in a format of a communication campaign which is almost flawless, the “Great Rama Experiment,” could pay off in June 28th. As an experiment.
