The upcoming elections are once more exposing a predominant pattern in Albanian post-communist politics. It seems disputes and a general conflictual spirit will override this electoral process too. The status quo can be discerned/read in a number of issues, such as the candidates and their quality, their selection procedures, the role of the international community in resolving disputes etc.
Government & opposition fully agree: they do not trust each other
The upcoming elections are once more exposing a predominant pattern in Albanian post-communist politics. It seems disputes and a general conflictual spirit will override this electoral process too. Government and opposition continue to clash on the issues of identity cards and a deep spirit of distrust rules over majority-opposition relations with on the process of distribution of identity cards to citizens. According to the Electoral Code, only citizens equipped with identity cards or passports that are valid for travel abroad can vote in these elections. The opposition sustains that at least 300 thousand citizens will be deprived of the right to vote as they do not have either of the valid documents. On the other side, the government provides different data. A month before the conduct of elections, all sorts of ideas arte being thrown on the table, including postponing the elections, or amend the Electoral Code to enable the use of the notorious birth certificates to vote. Above all, the opposition holds that the government is discriminately distributing identity cards by ignoring opposition supporters.
The identity card dispute, which remains the fundamental and critical problem for the integrity of the upcoming elections, has revived a repetitive pattern in Albanian politics – complaints to the international community. A public letter addressed to the Ministry of Interior demanding explanations for the citizens that do not have a passport or an identity card has also been addressed to OSCE/ODIHR ‘for their information’.
The disputes, the suspicions displayed by the opposition and especially its accusations of a manipulated process of distribution of identity cards are not detrimental only to the upcoming electoral process. Apart from serving the June 28th elections, equipping citizens with identity cards is also an element of state-building in Albania. The disputability of the integrity of the distribution process can have irreparable ramifications for the future of other reforms.
Government makes secrets public
The Ministry of Interior has publicly proclaimed the size of a ‘public secret’. Acocrding to the Ministry, 160 thousand to 260 thousand Albanians are abroad and not in possession of a passport. In simple terms, quarter of a million Albanians live and work in illegality in member states of the European Union.
Elections seem to have overshadowed everything though. Albania has recently filed its application for EU candidate status and is demanding the liberalization of the visa regime with EU member states. And it is in precisely this context that one party puts in doubt the process of distributing identity cards, while the other declares with an air of competence that 260 thousand Albanians illegally inhabit EU countries, simply to reduce the number of those that might not be able to receive an identity card. The government states that this conclusion was reached after some fieldwork – what fieldwork?!
The only safe assertion is that the struggle for power the short-term and short-sighted interests of the majority and opposition are putting state and societal interests at jeopardy.
Candidates: loyalty is a must
Careful observation of the candidate lists presented by the two main political blocks in particular clearly indicates that we will have a reshuffled parliament this time. A considerable number of members of parliament from both main political camps have been left out from the lists and new names have barged in. At first sight, this is a normal process. On the other hand, alongside the rejuvenation of parliamentary groups, the two main parties seem to be rejuvenating their leaderships too. It is hard to believe that the escort of young members will strengthen internal party democracy or enhance the quality of the future parliament. The new names in the DP and SP candidate lists are predominantly substituting critical voices, to whatever degree, within these parties. Besnik Mustafaj, one of the founders of the Democratic Party and former minister of Foreign Affairs resigned from the contest for the DP leadership in Tirana due to a manipulated electoral process. Pre硚ogaj, another well-known name of the Democratic Party, has also resigned from the DP and joined the ranks of a newly established party. If one looks inside the box of the Socialist Party, despite the lack of clamorous withdrawals, it is easy to discern that the head of party has picked his own entourage, for the party and for the list of candidates. The parliament to emerge out of these elections will be composed of new members, of different members, of more women, of many professions. What they all have in common however is an unspoken though dominant criterion: loyalty to the leader.
Too many chiefs ō
Thirty six political parties will run in the June 28th elections. The Albanian Assembly has never hosted more than four or five parties in the last twenty years. The history of parties in Albania is a history of ghosts. Most do not even have any members or supporters. Just a leader. Everybody wants to be a leader in this country. Out of the splits of the Social-Democratic Party of 1992, one of the four parties that have made it to parliament one way or another up until now, five other parties have sprung. Or rather, four party heads. The Republican Party, also one of the four that have composed parliament during the same period, has never managed on her own votes only. It has simply been donated a seat in parliament by one of the big parties. The hope is that after these elections, there won’t be many ghost parties left.
The non civility of Civil Society
The lists presented by political parties, especially those of the governing coalition and the opposition, are not short of candidates that come from the so-called civil society. Many of the candidates from civil society might be composing the next parliament. A considerable number of the candidates introduced as members of civil society have been put in almost safe positions in the parties’ lists. Likewise, the main parties have been attentive to gender equality by implementing one of the criteria of the Electoral Code which requires 30 percent of candidates to be women. However, the hope that a higher representation of civil society and women will mean more civility, consensus and less of a conflictual spirit is rather dim. During the last two weeks, the wide public had the opportunity to witness in the debates between the new candidates from civil society as well as from women the same aggressive spirit, the same conflictual spirit. The President of the Republic Bamir Topi took the opportunity of a public meeting to remind the lady candidates to not resemble men in politics. In the same fashion, the debates from contending candidates from civil society were dominated by aggressiveness, lack of tolerance and extreme policisation. Such a display of non-civility of ‘civil candidates’ can be explained by the fact that the parties have picked ordinary wageworkers in civil society organizations, people of no public repute, people who have not given shape to any ideas so that the public could have an idea of them. Candidates from civil society inadvertently and uncannily expose the state of the so-called civil society, its lack of capacity, leadership and innovative ideas.
Still the rich and the strong man
The list of candidates display no shortage of rich, very rich candidates. Positioned in safe spots in the party lists, in fact. During the last decade, a phenomenon stuck out in Albanian politics: the entry in parliament of the rich. Predominantly, the rich man comes in package with the strongman. In simple terms, these candidates are rich men and strongmen, and many are very rich because they are strong. According to a survey of the Albanian Institute for International Studies, 78 percent of Albanian think that after criminals, it is rich men that stand above the law in this country. Parties are prone to picking rich and strongmen in order to guarantee seats in parliament, but perhaps because they owe them something too. In the meantime, it remains very clear that once in parliament, this kind of candidates have a personal agenda to pursue that has hardly anything, even remotely in common, with that of the common citizen.
