Violence on the campaign trail is a reflection of politicians’
tough language and tense political climate.
By ANDI BALLA
Albania’s tense political climate has translated into a violent week on the campaign trail. A dozen or so incidents have included anything from a teenager being knifed in fight as he walked to hear his candidate speak to one rural municipal candidate shooting at a rival with a handgun. Thankfully no one has been killed, but if this keeps up, we are headed that way. And there are still three weeks left until the elections.
It is obviously shameful to watch this happening in the Albania of 2011, so looking at the escalating trend, every major party has now come out to distance itself from any form of violence on the campaign trail.
While the parties are saying the right things about the end of politically-motivated violence, they also need to look at the language used by their leaders and the method of governing, whether in government or within the parties themselves, that has led to such a highly-politicized and sporadically violent society.
One the points that can be easily overlooked in the heat of Albanian political life is the importance of being civil. Albanian politicians need to be civil to each other first, if they expect their followers to the same. Some of the personal attacks on each other, whether in parliament or on the campaign trail are petty, ill-worded and just malicious. They help to contribute to the low respect Albanians have for their political leaders and themselves. Civility is easy if there is will. And civility among party leaders and candidates will lead to civility among their supporters.
The electoral campaign has had another side to it. In fact it has been like a tail of two cites. On one hand, you have scary hordes of young men looking to pick up fight on what light pole they are allowed to hang a party flag, and on the other side you have a modern campaign involving social media like Facebook and panel discussions of policy on how to improve Albania’s municipalities. We need more of the latter and less of the street politics.
Of course, the violence did not come out of the blue and is not only related to the elections. It is part of the wider tense environment created by the two-year-long political deadlock for which Albania has been paying a heavy price.
The fear is that things could get worse as elections draw closer, or even more so after they happen, as Albanian political parties have the nasty habit of never accepting defeat in elections (even when they officially accept the results, there are underlying claims that the votes were miscounted). No one ever looses elections in Albania it seems like, they are always stolen. So if the results of these elections lead to a protracted challenge in the court and in the streets, there might be more violence in store.
The political parties might say they distance themselves from violence, but at the end of the day it is their leaders’ words and actions that ultimately lead to it. It is the choices politicians have made in Albania to tie everything and everybody to their political future that leads to the violence. It is the general political culture of yelling, cursing, lurid personal accusations and punches thrown in parliament that are to blame. When politicians in top political posts act that way, the rest of the country has little chance. That’s why bringing back civility, from the top down, is so important.
