Presidential talks reflect troubling trend of win-lose politics
Tirana Times editorial
TIRANA, May 31 – Appearing to reflect domestic and international pressure not to name one of its top leaders as a candidate for Albania’s president, the Democratic Party and its leader, Prime Minister Sali Berisha, proposed someone who has been largely out of the public eye.
On paper, Xhezair Zaganjori, a Constitutional Court judge and former diplomat with not a lot of political baggage, looks like a good candidate, but the opposition has rejected his candidacy because it was not consulted.
The opposition fears that through someone like Mr. Zaganjori, the Democrats will pick a new head of state that will rubber-stamp party decisions and create an unprecedented concentration of power in Mr. Berisha’s hands – something Mr. Berisha has always vied for in the past.
Mr. Berisha said the election of the new head of state should go through a fair, transparent and negotiable process that should also involve the Socialist opposition, but so far that hasn’t been the case. The prime minister is refusing to budge, and has declined to meet with Socialist leader Edi Rama though he met with all the other parliamentary party leaders. The excuse is that expert meetings solve issues like these, not personal agreements.
The excuse does not stand, since Mr. Berisha has always solved things he sees to his advantage through personal meetings, as was the case with Mr. Rama’s predecessor, Fatos Nano. Mr. Berisha wants the president to be a Democratic nominee and is using the refusal to talk to Mr. Rama and an effort to entirely sideline the Socialist leader, who is not even a member of parliament, and cannot speak directly on this matter.
On his end, Mr. Rama is happy to show the prime minister is going to elect the candidate the Democratic Party wants, regardless of what the opposition or the international community thinks – thus pressing for the case that the current government is holding the country backwards and further stalling its EU membership bid.
The so called negotiations have so far been nothing more than form over substance – and are simply a continuation of the Berisha-Rama dynamic that has done immense harm to Albania’s progress in general and to its EU bid in particular.
As this newspaper goes to press, things are up in the air, but it appears the first three rounds of voting will not produce a president, because the number of votes needed, two thirds, is not there. The last two rounds require a 50 percent plus one vote, or 71 votes.
Despite a very thin majority, the ruling parties can technically elect their own candidate in the fourth round – but if the opposition is strongly against it, the result will be a president that lacks full legitimacy; it will be very harmful to Albania’s image; and it will stall other reforms, like the regulatory changes needed before the next general elections are held.
At the end of the day, unless there is a major shift in rhetoric, it appears the prime minister is set to dominate once more and get his man or woman at the post of head of state – regardless whether the opposition and independent observers agree. If that happens, it will be one more sad day for Albania, precipitating the slippery slope in which the country finds itself politically and economically.
