‘The early bird gets the worm’, or in political terms the work to steal the next elections starts the moment the current manipulation wraps up. This is the only framework that helps to put in context and understand what happened a few days ago in a meeting of the local Shkodra branch of the majority party, the SP.
Local party officials were complaining that the ally, meaning the SPD party, was getting all the public administration jobs and appointments therefore robbing them of the only motivation they can offer to their supporters: employment safety. The local party people seemed quite annoyed and were not convinced by the party emissaries such as the newly minted Secretary General of the SP, Gjiknuri or outgoing minister Klosi. Both of them were saying that the ally had to be respected not only because he has 3 MPs in the assembly but most importantly because he is pivotal for the next round of local elections.
One does not know how do even begin to make sense of this. The sad truth is that this reality is pervasive in Albania. Job mean votes, favors mean power. However it is still detrimental to the consolidation of the state and it erodes to the core any sustainability of functional democratic institutions.
Furthermore, this meticulous and relentless preparation of how to illegally influence and manipulate the next elections so that the power is always in the same hands stands in direct contrast to the hope that democracy will gain a purposeful foot in the country.
The “ally”, the SPD is run by Tom Doshi, however currently de jure the chairman is someone else appointed by him given the inconvenient non grata designation of Doshi by the US department of State. Notwithstanding the repeated declarations of Pm Rama that he has kicked Doshi out, the reality of these simple concrete conversations show that in reality he and the party are accommodating his people and his interests to the maximum possible extent.
And this brings to the final argument that the intricate link between politics, corruption and illicit business is calcifying every single day, penetrating into every pore and capillary of the country’s economic life and social fabric. We may have even reached the point of no return.
