Basha’s challenge

ANALYSIS: New opposition leader holds the key to breaking with past
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The way of doing politics in Albania is undergoing one of the largest shifts since the beginning of the country’s young democracy. Albania now has a new government in office through a democratic transfer power that was the result of elections deemed to be the fairest organized in years – perhaps ever. As new Prime Minister Edi Rama and his government – filled with young ministers, many of which women – take office, Albanians are hopeful and waiting for improvements in how the country is run.
But perhaps to the transformation of doing politics and to the future of Albania, what is happening in opposition is just as important as what is happening in government.
With Rama’s rise to the prime minister’s seat, there is also a new prime-minister-in-waiting. The leader of the new opposition is Lulzim Basha, the 39-year-old mayor of Tirana, who was elected leader of the Democratic Party shortly after the party suffered a major defeat in the June general elections, leading to the resignation of its leader for two decades, former Prime Minister Sali Berisha.
Basha’s election as head of the Democratic Party is a turning point for the future of the opposition in Albania, and he faces many challenges. How he handles these challenges will not only determine his own political future but also that of his party.
Basha enjoys full legitimacy in his new role, not so much from the internal party voting, which he won overwhelmingly, but because the Netherlands-educated lawyer who was only 17 when Communism fell was an obvious choice to move the party past the transition years, and thus largely accepted by all Democratic Party structures and the Albanian public at large. In essence, a fresh face with a clear Western outlook, Basha was largely seen as safe, acceptable and reliable choice as leader of the opposition.
But he faces many challenges. He must manage the transition of the party from a bitter loss in the election to a strong opposition. Basha takes on a party that is at its weakest position in years, and that hasn’t fully grasped what went wrong with its governance and why Albanian voters turned against it. As such, it will be tough beast to handle as Basha tries to mature at the helm at the opposition.
But perhaps the most important question of all is what will be the dynamic of the relationship between Basha and the man he replaced, Berisha, and what role with the former leader play in the Democratic Party from now on.
Despite the fact that Basha is liked by many, because he offers the promise of a better future for the Democrats נone of his main weaknesses is that he is seen as a hand-picked successor by Berisha, who had absolute domination on the party since its founding. Basha must rise above this if he wants to eventually hold the prime minister’s seat.
Berisha’s politics were based on control, domination and conflict for over two decades. In essence, the center of power moved to where Berisha was. When he was president in the early 1990s, the power fell all to the presidency. When he was elected prime minister in 2005, he again was the center of power. And in the in-between period: when Berisha was in opposition – he was in the streets, protesting – so the power was in the streets with him.
This man-over-institutions, street-over-parliament method, and the type of conflict-ridden, domineering and authoritarian style that Berisha’s leadership style brings to mind for many Albanians is something today’s Albanian voters simply reject. It is archaic and simply doesn’t fit the model of the modern European country Albanians want to have.
So Basha’s challenge and the most important question in Albanian politics today is: Will Basha be able to fully be at the helm of his party?
There is no immediate clear answer yet. In a complex organization with the history of the Democratic Party power cannot be transferred as if by magic overnight. It would be naive and not realistic to think that Berisha’s influence on the Democratic Party will simply and quickly disappear. Even in countries and parties with far longer and more consolidated democracies, that often hasn’t been the case. It takes some time for a successor to consolidate power and gain the needed influence, and that is particularly the case when the predecessor is a very strong leader.
So perhaps the better answer would be: Will Berisha keep to his new role as a retired leader? Is he able to do so? That remains to be seen, but if one was looking for a completely disappearing act, the type pulled by another former prime minister, Fatos Nano, he or she were disappointed, because Berisha, officially now only an MP, is clearly in the public eye, daily.
Yet Basha can, with the right predisposition, meet the challenges in front of him. He is the Western face of the Democratic Party and the opposition, and he come with a wealth of strong executive experience in several ministries – many diplomats refer to him as one of the best foreign ministers Albania has had,
for example. He also has popular support, exactly because his more European way of campaigning and communication. Regardless of the tight and controversial 2011 election in which he was elected Tirana mayor – he received more votes than any Democrat had done in years against a backdrop of falling popularity for the party and an entrenched opponent who now is the new prime minister of Albania. As a result, Basha now leads the country’s largest municipality, which appears to have become the stepping stone the prime minister’s chair in modern Albania.
But to get there, Basha has to build a new political model for the Democratic Party, a model that relies on the practices of the democratic world, build on consensus rather than conflict.
This new model is needed if the Democrats hope to have any success in future elections, and work on it must start now. The Democrats cannot search for political success in senseless conflict with the government, opposing all and everything as the now governing Socialists themselves often did in opposition. If Berisha built his power on the politics of conflict, Basha faces a different government, and he must adapt with a different type of opposition.
This does not mean at all that Basha should withdraw from keeping the government in check. To the contrary, that and offering alternative solutions is the primary role of a modern opposition. And, clearly, Albania needs a strong position, but one with a modern outlook that supports efforts of consensus when they are in the best interest of the country.
Basha can successfully fulfill that role. All the ingredients are there. But to be successful, he and his party need to look to the future, not to the past.