TIRANA TIMES EDITORIAL
Albania’s next prime minister, Edi Rama, has announced the composition the new government that will be sworn in early next month. Rama’s first cabinet is a first step in his promise for change. It has more women than ever in the history of Albanian democracy. It is also filled with newcomers to the cabinet, a lack of experience that should be used to push for systemic change in order to overhaul Albania’s broken governance system, which is riddled with corruption and inefficiencies.
The new prime minister was elected on the promise for systemic change, chiefly to fight corruption, which permeates every aspect of Albanian government functions, and to improve government services such as education and healthcare.
It is also important that because most ministers are newcomers to the government executive role, the new cabinet needs to retain and attract the strong support of qualified technocratic civil service officials who can do a good job in implementing the government’s vision for change.
Only time will tell how the new government will perform, but it would be a great disappointment if it fell back into the same corrupt practices for which the voters have punished the outgoing Democratic Party government.
Yet, despite all Socialist Party ministers being newcomers to their posts, the new government is a clear product of the coalition between the Socialist Party and the Socialist Movement for Integration. The latter has obtained a significant piece of the pie, five cabinet seats, leading some key ministries. All ministers who have previously served in an Albanian government also come from this party, indicating that the smallish party has few key figures to rely on, despite growing support in the polls and the strength it draws from serving as kingmaker in two consecutive governments נwhile in coalition with two different major parties.
It will also be interesting to see the relations between the new cabinet and the parliament. Rama’s promise to have ministers not be members of parliament means many key figures in the Socialist Party might have not been willing to leave their legislative role. It also means that many people elected in parliament will now leave their seats to others within the party, though they are not legally bound to do so.
It is also important to note that in the Socialist Party ministers, Rama has clearly chosen a team of his own. These new ministers – especially those in key positions – have had their careers tied to that of Rama. So ultimate success or failure of the government will fall on the new prime minister’s shoulders.
That said, the new ministers need to be given a chance to show themselves in the first few months of governance, in order to properly evaluate them.
In general, there appear to be no glaring problems with the nominations. However, key cabinet posts will have to be under a strong media and public light in their performance, particularly where the nominees might be weak and the tasks great – for example where the minister is not clearly associated with the sector she or he is given to govern.
Chief among these is the education sector, which is currently a disaster, and needs to be overhauled, and where the nominated minister could have been another woman with far more experience and reputation.
That’s followed closely by the healthcare sector, where the new prime minister has proposed a plan, but we will only be able to judge once we see it in action – it won’t be easy.
