After two hot weeks the Albanian political class, composed mainly of 140 MPs fed by Albanian taxpayers and their bribes are not able to fulfill a simple constitutional duty: elect a president for Albania!
What should have been a simple task turns out to be impossibly long and complicated given their political myopia, their inability to come to a right judgment, their fill-time commitment to corruptive practices which consume their time.
Given that they have reached a dead-end and cannot elect president themselves they are proposing now a popular vote. Let the sovereign chose!
With this proposal they overlook two things: first, a popular presidential election would require a constitutional change (which to Albanian MPs sounds a s easy as changing a tie) and second a popularly chosen president means a less powerful PM and in small place like ours even no PM at all!
Nevertheless, considering that a campaign, for president or for early elections, would be too expensive (weighting on taxpayers again!), and given the already too fragile Albanian economy, I have come to a proposal for all Albanian politicians: let the president be chosen from the golden cage, the Albanian reality show.
The political parties should come forward and propose their candidates, as many as they want. The more the merrier! Considering the proposals made so far we have 9 from the opposition and 4 from the majority coalition. All these candidates vying fro the most prestigious political post should be isolate din a luxurious hotel lets say Rogner or the Sheraton. Perhaps even in a comfortable villa at the periphery, in Linza.
They should be barred from watching television or listening to the radio or even using their mobiles. They can not communicate directly to the public who will vote with their SMS the winner.
The candidates will be allowed to be accompanied form their first ladies as the position of a first lady is at least as important as that of her husband. The ladies will also be barred from TV or mobile phone communication. (Well, perhaps an exception must be made for their telenovellas.)
The cameras will roll 24/7 while the candidates will expose their programs and debate among themselves for issues pertaining to leadership and state management. Every few hours they can have discussions about the Attorney General, the appointed ambassadors, the fiscal package, NATO and EU integration, the relationships with the USA, Russia, Serbia, Greece, Italy, the Tcham issue, the Iraq war, globalization, terrorism ,etc.
Al the direct transmissions from the house will be left outside the time allocated to news editions so that people can hear on real issues such as what is going on with water supply, electricity shortages, hunger strikes of miners, the construction of the Duress-Kikes road, the lack of public investments, the increase in interest rates, the public debt, the African climate, the accidents claiming human live sin the mornings and why not a rare opera or theatre play in the weekends.
Alongside the direct debates there should be sessions for answering questions from the public. The candidates will be free to consult their first ladies on several issues. Indeed on matters related to charity, unemployment, social issues health, children abuse and abortion they will be even encouraged to do so.
The only channel through which the candidates can communicate to the public will be just like in the reality show the secret room where they would plea for victory and their message would be safe from the ears of other candidates. Here they could talk about their vision about Albania’s future, the economy, the government, who they would like to see as PM, High State Audit head, Justice Minister, who would they see as a propagator of Albania’s NATO integration, etc.
The voting pattern would be very clear and simple. For the assistance given to transmitting the public messages as well as for their general integrity and honesty AMC and Vodafone would be rewarded with postponing the third mobile operator for one more year.
According to AMC and Vodafone Albania counts 2 million registered users of mobile phones, approximately equal to the number of eligible votes. Mobile phones will give the opportunity to vote even to immigrants whose voice has never counted despite their 17 years remittances feeding Albanian economy.
Double voting will not be permitted. Five times voting neither!
Voting process will have differences. Rural voters with prepaid cards should not be charged while numbers ho start with 20 or 40 should be overcharged given that they often belong to politicians, businessmen and other rich elements of the society. This money shall forma charity fund. The candidates should decide on the beneficiaries of this fund. Maybe orphan children, maybe children of assassinated policemen, children whose policemen fathers have been rendered unemployed, or even the miners who just recently got out of the hunger strike. This should take into consideration probably the families of the tow miners who lost their live sin the Bulqiza accident some days ago.
And given that till July 24, when the official mandate for the current president is over, there are still a couple of days, a big show is guaranteed. The TV stations will compete for more and more viewers. “What’s going on with the President in the cage?” shall be the question of the day. No strikes, no accidents, no work, no water and electricity concerns. These days will be exclusively devoted to the election of the President, only this time in an efficient way.
And the final day shall arrive. The big TV final night will feature thousands of eyes glued to the TV screen. Journalists and analysts will comment live. People from all over will watch the Guinness record setting show: Tonight the president is chosen! Who will it be?
