Albania will hold parliamentary elections on June 23, 2013 in a process that marks the seventh consecutive general parliamentary elections since the fall of the communist regime in 1992. To provide background information to an international audience, the Tirana Centre for Journalistic Excellence has published an executive briefing available in full at TCJE.org. Tirana Times, a TCJE partner, is publishing a second part of the publication here. TCJE is a nongovernmental and nonprofit organization that aims to improve the quality of journalism in Albania by providing and commissioning professional and independent media coverage that is free of political and commercial pressures often faced by Albanian media.
Although new players have entered the political scene in Albania, the upcoming parliamentary elections of June 23, 2013 will primarily be a battle between the ruling Democratic Party and the opposition Socialist Party and collations which either party will lead. These two parties have dominated the political scene for the past 20 years in Albania, and despite attempts to create a third option, Albania has created a political system that is bipolar in nature, with the two parties taking turns at being in power. This two-party system is showing signs of cracking, however, as seen particularly during the recent parliamentary elections of 2009. Neither of the two major parties was able to secure enough of a majority on its own to form a government, 71 out of 140 members of parliament. The Democratic Party was only able to create a government by inviting SMI to join the government. Chances are that this bipolar two-party system could face further erosion in the next parliamentary elections, due to two new political parties: the Red and Black Alliance and the New Democratic Spirit.
From the ideological point of view, the Democrats and Socialists are actually very similar. These two major parties have almost the same general program, twenty years since their founding, but the dominance of these parties seems to be assisted by the nature of the electoral system, a regional proportional system that does not allow free competition of small political parties, especially for new parties, if they do not join coalitions with one of the two major parties.
The Democratic Party, in power since 2005, aims to get a third term in the upcoming elections. Established in 1990, the Democratic Party was the first non-communist opposition in Albania. More than a political party, DP was a large opposition front that won a great victory in 1992. Five years later, Democrats would leave power in conditions of complete anarchy after the collapse of pyramid schemes that followed the controversial parliamentary elections of 1996.
The Democratic Party returned to power in 2005 after bad governance and corruption by the Socialists. Prime Minister Sali Berisha has led the Democratic Party since its inception. He is a strong and uncontested leader who has not only dominated the Democratic Party, but all of Albania’s politics since the fall of communism more than two decades ago. Since 1997, many members of the senior leadership of the Democratic Party opposed the leadership of Berisha, who has been accused of using authoritarianism and undemocratic methods to control the party and the government of the country, have left the Democratic Party, creating new parties in opposition to the DP. Others competed for leadership of the Democratic Party and lost. But since 2004, and certainly in 2005, when the Democratic Party headed by Berisha came to power, almost all former opponents of Berisha returned to the party and took important positions in the cabinet, and to certain extent in the party.
The Democratic Party’s program sets it as center-right organization, however, in Albania, it is still difficult to distinguish among party programs, as they have little or no ideology. The left and right are defined as such not because of political and economic programs. They are rather labeled due to their legacies: the Socialists, the former Communist Party, must necessarily be left, and Democrats right or center-right. However, some ideological differences are now starting to show. For the first time in Albania, tax-related policies are actually made subject to election campaigns and political programs. For perhaps the first time in twenty years of transition, the two major parties are actually following their left or right labels. The Democratic Party insists that it will continue to apply a flat tax of 10 percent as an opportunity to increase investment and employment. Local and international experts believe that the flat tax of 10 percent is very attractive for foreign and local investment, for which there is a great need in Albania.
There is almost no difference in foreign policy and international relations in the programs of the two major parties. During the past eight years, when the government has been led by Sali Berisha’s Democratic Party, the country managed to join the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO). From 2011, Albanian citizens have had the opportunity to travel to much of the EU without first having to obtain a visa of the Schengen area countries. This is an excellent achievement that will help modernize Albanian society and improve the economy, trade flows and quality of life. The Albanian government under the leadership of the Democrats, applied for EU membership a few days before the parliamentary elections of June 29, 2009, but the European Commission has rejected granting candidate status three times, and thus Albania has failed to make a first step in the accession process. The center-right government of Sali Berisha accused the Socialist opposition that it has intentionally hampered the country’s progress toward EU integration. The governing Democrats support this charge with the boycott of institutions by the Socialists, starting with the long boycott of parliament, but particularly, more recently, with the refusal of the opposition to vote three reform-related laws, which require a qualified majority.
In Albania, there is no political party, organization or influential individual that challenges the country’s goal for membership in the European Union. Western observers say that Albania would already have the status of candidate country if the government and the opposition would agree to work together. More than the content of the laws, it seems that Brussels places importance in the spirit of consensus and compromise. The argument the Socialists offer that they won’t approve the three laws because other laws are not properly enforced is essentially wrong. At the same time, the Democrats’ equation that the three laws’ approval equals EU candidate status is also not true.
During the last six months, there has been a rise of populism and nationalist rhetoric, where all parties talk about national issues and finding solutions. This is a new development in Albanian politics, which actually began with the emergence of the Red and Black Alliance, initially as a social movement and then as a political party. The idea was to use patriotism to gain support. The fact that the Red and Black Alliance seemed to gain an increasing number of supporters was seen as a threat by the Democratic Party, which had seen the patriotism card and nationalist voters as its own. In turn fear of the RBA, pushed the Democrats and Berisha further into nationalist rhetoric, causing worry internationally.
The Socialist Party comes to these elections after eight years in opposition. The results of these elections will to a large extent decide the future of the Socialist leadership today, especially its leader, Edi Rama. Since the Communists of the former Labour Party transformed their organization into the Socialist Party, its leadership has seen some significant changes. The Socialists were led for a long time by former Prime Minister Fatos Nano, though his leadership style was not as absolute as Berisha’s in the Democratic Party. Berisha and Nano dominated political life in post-communist Albania. However, while Nano has largely withdrawn from the political scene, Berisha continues to dominate to this day.
Clashes within the Socialist Party between the historic leader, Nano, and Ilir Meta, one of four Socialist prime ministers since the fall of communism, led to the secession of Meta and his supporters and the creation of another party, The Socialist Movement for Integration. In the 2005 elections, the Socialist Party lost the general election and Nano resigned from the leadership of the party and to some a large extent left active politics. Socialists elected as party leader Edi Rama, who was then mayor of Tirana. Rama had joined the Socialists in 1997, when Nano invited him to join the cabinet as Minister of Culture, following the victory of the Socialist Party in those elections. Rama’s political career with the Socialists would proceed with getting elected as mayor of Tirana, which he ran for three terms, more than a decade. Rama’s Socialist Party lost the parliamentary elections of 2009. In 2011, he lost his post as Mayor of Tirana as well. Rama claims both votes were rigged. However, if Rama fails to bring the Socialists to power after eight years of opposition, he will likely have to leave politics.
The Socialist Party’s program sets it as social-democratic center-left party. Rama’s Socialists propose a tax debate with the Democratic Party. The Socialists are seeking to return to progressive taxation, eliminating the flat tax. SP says it will create 300,000 jobs in its first mandate, a huge number approximately equal to half of Albanian families currently living in Albania,1 (or at least more than 40 percent of workforce Albania.) SP says it will cut the tax burden to 95 percent of people. Just as almost all Albanian parties (at least 67 have been registered so far for elections), SP says it will resolve the property rights issue, one of the fundamental unsolved problems of the post-communist Albania.
The Socialist Party and its leader talk about a new renaissance in Albania under its rule, setting the word as their campaign slogan. They also say they will dismantle a corrupt regime installed by the government (composed until very recently by a coalition of DP and SMI.) However, their slogan might lose some of its color since Socialists decided in April to join forces with SMI, a key partner in the Democrats’ ruling coalition. The SMI left the government and announced it would join the opposition. This is a very rare event in modern history and party pluralism. In January 2011, Ilir Meta, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy resigned under charges of corruption and Socialist Party immediately organized a protest against what it said was a corrupt government. Four Socialist protesters were killed, marking a dark day for Albania.
Local and international observers see the new opposition coalition as a pragmatic choice with short-term goals for personal power by Rama and Meta. However this changes will also have other implications. By joining SMI, Socialists think they can get more votes, but by contrast, the moderate segment of Albanian society, that actually makes a difference, could also be disenchanted by this pragmatic alliance, and media debates show a portion of the population is unhappy that there will be no pure “rebirth” of sorts since part of the 2009-2013 government could be in power when the election results come out. In terms of programs, the SMI-SP alliance is at odds over taxation, since SMI had supported the 10 percent flat tax set up by the government. But there could be more serious implications in the near future if the coalition wins. It is very likely that Rama and Meta could return to their old rivalry if Meta would be able to again make his party a kingmaker if the coalition is victorious.
The Socialist Movement for Integration (SMI), was a faction of the Socialist Party, which split in 2004, under the direction of Ilir Meta, prime minister in the Socialist government from 2002 to 2004. Separation of the Socialist Party was mainly due to a power struggle between two rival figures, Nano and Meta. This disruption of the left is thought to be one of the reasons Socialists marked consecutive losses in parliamentary and local elections. In the 2009 parliamentary elections, SMI ran alone and managed to secure four seats in the 140-seat parliament, enough to win the kingmaker’s role. Although SMI, as noted, ran as an opposition party in the 2009 elections, urging citizens to vote in order “to remove the Democratic Party from power and send Sali Berisha to political retirement”, at the end of the election, it joined forces with the Democrats, giving it the ability to create the government. SMI was in government during the past four years by mastering three seats in the cabinet, some of most important portfolios, Economy, Health and Foreign Affairs. Meta himself held the posts of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and later Minister of Economy, before he resigned to face corruption charges. Although it is difficult to place the SMI program in the ideological spectrum, nominally it is perceived as left-wing due to the fact that it was part of the Socialist Party before the split. SMI left the governing coalition in April only two and a half months before the elections, stating that it would join the opposition Socialist Party in a coalition. SMI has indicated that its top goal is the EU integration of the country, although some of charges the party has faced from critics make it hard to see it as living purely by EU standards. All political parties in Albania want EU integration, moreover there is no party or organization or individual with influence against integration. As long as the SMI was in power with the Democratic Party of Prime Minister Sali Berisha it had supporter his policies. Now that the two Socialist parties have joined forces, it will be interesting to see how programs will shift to meet new realities.
The Red and Black Alliance initially appeared as a social movement and registered as a political party a year ago (March 2012). RBA’s entrance into politics marks the first time a nationalist political party could have presence in the Albanian political scene. RBA sees its program as defending the country’s national interests and protecting the interests of Albanians regardless of where they live. RBA has successful in fostering an image of a protest movement and focused on issues of strengthening the state and the nation, which according to the RBA have been at best disrespected or betrayed by the current political parties. Its cause celebre is the maritime border with Greece, which the alliance says the current government wanted to give territory away. The Red and Black Alliance has also called for national unification, and has even proposed holding a nationwide referendum on Albania and Kosovo joining into one country. RBA leader Kreshnik Spahiu has applied at the Central Electoral Commission to hold a “referendum for unification” in order to create a federation of the two countries before EU integration.
Setting RBA somewhere in ideological spectrum is a difficult because its supporters represent several layers of society. Spahiu himself has labeled the alliance as “nationalist”. The RBA program also appears to lack any ideological clarity. In the case of the Albanian parties, except the left-right divide, which comes from the legacy of the past, the communists and non-communists, it is still difficult to identify the parties and their distinction, based on the political program. However, RBA talks about the creation of a strong state, strong rule of law, economic development and voiding what it says are corruptive concession contracts.
The New Democratic Spirit Party comes from a split in the Democratic Party. It is the only recent split in DP, after the New Democratic Party, founded by Genc Pollo in his early efforts to take leadership of the Democratic Party. NDS is led by former President Bamir Topi, a former key figure in the Democratic Party. His deputy is Gazmend Oketa, a former deputy prime minister in the 2005 – 2009 government of the Democratic Party, and NDS includes a number of other officials of lower ranks in the Democratic Party. NDS says it is a center-right party. It also notes in its program that it aims to build a stronger state, making similar points to the RBA, SP and DP.
The political future of both parties, the NDS and RBA, will depend on the results of the June 23 parliamentary elections. Both parties have stated that they are not willing to make pre-election coalitions with the two major parties. So they are going at it alone. RBA negotiated with the SP, to join the left-wing coalition, but decided against it. DP tried to get the NDS to talk to it, but Topi’s party rejected the idea.
In addition to the parties analyzed above, there are also a number of smaller parties, such as the Human Rights Union Party, identified primarily with the Greek minority and which currently has one member of parliament. The Justice and Unity Party represents the Cham community, and is mainly identified with its president, a former customs official who was elected MP on behalf of the SP in 2009. It also has a second member of parliament it elected on its own. Besides some traditional right-wing parties, such as the National Front Party and the Party of Legality with pre-WWII roots and allied with DP, but which have no MPs at this time, there are some small leftist parties allied with SP, such as the Social Democratic Party and its various factions, which currently have no seats in parliament. The current electoral system encourages the formation of coalitions with as many parties as possible. And Albania has no shortage of such political organizations. SP is going to the elections with 39 parties. DP has 26 in its coalition. Most voters will be unfamiliar with the names of most of the smaller parties.
