All at sea

Just ten days before the conduct of the parliamentary election what can be safely asserted is a state of absolute confusion regarding the offers of Albania’s political parties to their electorate; an absolute lack of clarity regarding voter behaviour; uncertainty over the administration of the electoral process; uncertainty over the behaviour of the international referee; and last but not least, absolute inability to predict the quality and stability of the government that will come out of these elections, assuming one will indeed come out.
First of all, what the two main political parties of the country, the Democratic Party in power and the Socialist Party in opposition, contend to be offering as a winning choice for the elections is change. Both principal competing parties and their respective coalitions propagate to bring change. The coalition led by the Democratic Party of Premier Berisha has called itself the Alliance of Change, while the opposition coalition led by the Socialist Party of the Rama Municipality has called itself the Union for Change.
The democrats in power claim to have brought change to Albania during the four years of their rule and that change will continue should they win a second mandate. The Socialist Party, on the other hand, maintains that time has come for Albania to undergo real change and free itself from the old politicians and from old politics. It is clear that Edi Rama, the Socialists’ leader that has been running the Municipality of Tirana for almost a decade, identifies old politics with Premier Berisha, who has dominated the Albanian political scene during the past twenty years.
Talk of change is to be expected in an electoral campaign. Yet, it is certainly bizarre for both contenders to speak of change. This is especially true when it is difficult to discern the substance of change in the presented political programs of these parties. Rather than a contest of political programs, within which the claimed change is hard to find, the elections will be a political duel between Prime Minister Berisha and the SP leader Edi Rama. The Socialists are relying upon and hoping much from what they call the Rama model, by which they mean the manner of governance of Tirana under Rama’s leadership for almost a decade. On the other side of the spectrum, the campaign of the government and its allied parties rests on Prime Minister Berisha.
Second, ten days before the elections, it remains difficult to project predictions as to the winner. Both public and private televisions that broadcast the parties’ campaigns every day are entirely manipulated. Views transmitted of political rallies from both sides are prepared and favourably angled by the election teams of the parties, not by the media themselves, thus impeding objective assessment of actual public support. The polls conducted so far cannot draw a clear conclusion on the most likely winner either. Even though a considerable number of local and international companies have come in for the first time to measure public support during this electoral contest, the only thing one can read in them is uncertainty and confusion. Local experts assert that amongst other things the 28th of June elections will expose the low level of professionalism of poll makers as well as the scale of political instrumentalisation of these necessary means in a democratic system.
Third, ten days before the conduct of elections, nobody is certain of the voting process on the 28th June and of the well-administration of this process. A scenario where all parties lose should not be excluded, says an expert of the Albanian Institute of International Studies. It would be unforgivable for political actors of a NATO member state, a state that has just applied to the EU, to allow this to happen. The benchmark, the turning point that these elections are expected to be for Albania’s generally conflict-ridden politics is hard to be seen. Failing these elections would have serious ramifications for the near future of reforms, development, political stability and security.
Fourth, the conduct of the international referee, of such decisive importance for the legitimation or delegitimation of the electoral process, is unclear. For a relatively long time, the international community’s approach towards Albania has been the so-called “negative stability” by which for as long as the elections and their results do not cause serious instability, respect of all international standards for free and fair elections can be sacrificed, neglected. Albania’s elections will therefore be a test for international observers too.
Last but not least, this is the first time when it is impossibly difficult to make predictions of the future government and its stability, always assuming a cabinet will be formed. If one is to trust polls so far, the creation of a government will be difficult, and the stability of this government even more so. Thus, these elections will force a maturity and self-containment test on the winning political parties to move towards consensus in a context where the only practice has been the zero-sum game.