By Fatos Lubonja
In the articles I wrote in the lead-up period to these elections I repeatedly expressed the idea that Albania faces the danger of the installation of a regime “a Putin.” I mean this in terms of the consolidation of a powerful majority that controls the principle interests of the country, therefore politics too, confronted with a weak and feeble Opposition, without the power to conduct opposition or bring about a rotation. I have always been of the opinion that no matter who the winner, Berisha or Rama, this danger would in both cases, loom on the horizon. It is only natural that I ask whether or not these elections proved this hypothesis or did it turn out to be mistaken? The fact that the electorate was almost divided down the middle could give rise to the thesis that there is no danger of such a regime because the Opposition remains strong against a fragile Majority. The fact that apart from a Berisha-Putin we also have Ilir Meta in coalition with Berisha, which in one way or another is conceived as a strengthening and not weakening of Meta’s party, urges some to think that Meta will exert control on Berisha, everywhere and at any time, which creates the hope that a regime “a Putin” will not happen.
Irrespective of all of this, I find none too few arguments supporting my idea that this danger remains fully viable. I point out, at this juncture, that when I say “danger” I mean that we should not think this process as now being determined, as inevitable, but as a trend against which there must be resistance, so that it is curbed and avoided. Perhaps the Putin risk may have been greater if Rama had won these elections, bearing in mind the fact that Rama would have controlled both central government and the Municipality of Tirana; and a victory by Rama would have knocked both Berisha and Meta right out of the game. However, it can never be said that the country does not face such a risk with Berisha’s victory.
There are a score of indications of this, which in my opinion, are being borne out both by these elections and the developments in the aftermath.
First, I believe that this risk emanates from the structure of our economy which also dictates politics. If we were to follow through the flow of events in our country over the last ten years, we could quite safely claim that during this decade our political parties have grown more and more to closely resemble one another. True, a few sporadic differences still remain that are linked with the origin of the militants, (not just class but also geographical origins), but I believe that this has faded in favour of those groupings within the parties which were also their main supporters in the electoral campaigns and which have transversal tendencies. This transversal trend has now been proven in a number of projects they have worked on together, dictating political compromises, but the transition of the SMI to the DP camp, seems to me to be obvious proof of this transversal feature, if not a culmination point of this tendency.
Second, another feature of our political parties, which leads the country towards this danger and which was illustrated by the DP-SMI collaboration is the close similarity of their party programs, or the compulsory approximation of programs on behalf of the interests expressed in the above paragraph. As I pointed out in my previous article, the word, “integration,” or “employment,” which according to the leaders of the DP and SMI, indicate common programs, in reality show that in essence there are no different programs. Even the slogan launched by Rama, “Beyond the Left and the Right,” and which today is being applied against him by the Berisha-Meta tandem is an indication of this. Most certainly what could be said is that what has been lost with the SMI joining the coalition with Berisha is the existence of a party where shelter was provided for all of those who fought the system which has been created by the two big parties. Therefore, in a certain manner, this flourishing of the SMI inside the DP could also be seen as a further step towards a regime “a Putin.”
Third, the developments prior to and after the elections revealed that even concerning the structure of the parties, there is a striking resemblance with the leadership “a Putin” within these parties, meaning the absolute leader, who, even when he is compelled to resign from a post, remains the real leader. What these elections managed to prove is the even greater accumulation of power in the hands of the leaders of the pyramid-type party structures, which seem to have lost to an even greater degree the links between the leader and the base, in favour of the Leader-Base direct link. The idea of the resignation of those leaders who lose, which is one of the ways of creating internal democracy in the party, does not even occur to these leaders, but it also looks as though there are no intermediate structures that would impose such a move on them. Today, there are several leaders who should have resigned including Meta and Rama, but instead of this we witnessed manifestations of solidarity on the part of the militants for their leader.
Bearing in mind the three points I mention above, and, focusing first on the Majority, would it not be fair to pose the question as to what purpose two parties in the Majority and not the one party would serve in the future? This question could also be put in this way too: Does the same fate await the SMI as that of Gjinushi’s SDP of Ceka’s Democratic Alliance, Pollo’s party and so on or even the fate of a party that appeared to have its own strong identity – the HRUP, which has now been reduced to one seat in the Assembly? To remain in line with the parallelism we drew with Putin’s regime, (of course greatly simplified), I wish to underline that one of the methods Putin used to reinforce his party and power was the “purchasing” of opponents and giving them lucrative posts in power; In other words by absorbing them, just as we can see that the small parties in our country have been absorbed.
Therefore, I believe that the risk we could head towards a Putin type regime remains strong. In this article I will not focus on the tendencies Berisha has shown to gain control of entire institutions which should function as guarantors against the control of the power of the Executive; I will not dwell on the fact that it is obvious that with the second victory of Berisha, these institutions (the judiciary or even the institution of the President), will feel even more feebler in their efforts to safeguard the relative independence they sued to have. With this fact in mind too, it is obvious that the danger of a regime “a Putin” becomes even more tangible.
It is not rocket science to comprehend that the continuation of this perilous process of the concentration of power will be the destruction of the Opposition keeping it very weak. It is easy to imagine a Berisha-Meta commitment to eradicate every hearth of opposition or even to stage a settling of accounts that is absolutely final. I believe that the growth of their control over the media and finances will facilitate such a process. The question then arises as to what the Opposition should do in these conditions. What will Edi Rama’s fate be? What does his staying or leaving the SP mean in relation to the danger of the installation of a regime “a Putin”? I will leave this answer to another article.
