Hurt by the last-minute, non-consensual selection as head of state, President Bujar Nishani must rise above any government interference and work hard to earn the trust of the opposition and the public.
Tirana Times editorial
TIRANA, July 26 – Bujar Nishani will occupy the office Albania’s head of state for the next five years. What he does while in office will largely determine his legacy and his success in his constitutional role as a symbol of unity for the nation.
But his performance will likely be affected by the Albanian society at large and its institutions נthe government and the opposition.
Much also depends on how much meddling he will allow from one man נhis former boss נPrime Minister Sali Berisha, who has a history of trying to push his will in the affairs of independent institutions and who hand-picked Mr. Nishani as president.
As such, Mr. Nishani’s starts his work already facing some bias. He became head of state without the consent of the political opposition. Though his election in parliament was legal and constitutional, the parliamentary majority unilaterally chose him as head of state, harming the reputation of the office which must be non-political and consensual, as mandated by the constitution.
The opposition is paying for its past sins here, as Mr. Nishani’s unilateral election was based on constitutional changes agreed upon in 2008 by the opposition leader, Edi Rama, who, believing that he would win the 2009 parliamentary elections engaged in a short-sighted zero-sum game, and agreed to join Mr. Berisha in changing the constitution overnight.
The opposition also proved too disorganized and unwilling to come up with a more consensual candidate, despite having a very large percentage in parliament נ66 seats out of 140.
The new president will not have the support of the opposition נat least not in the immediate term. But President Nishani might earn that support if he acts as a true and balanced head of state.
To do so, Mr. Nishani must chart his own course – independent of the prime minister and the opposition, as he also needs to to win over the bias and skepticism he faces by a part of the Albanian society, civic organizations and the media.
In any country with a democratic society the person appointed president – regardless whether this is done by the people directly or the parliament – cannot be a last minute surprise as was the case with Mr. Nishani. Every country with a democratic society has three or four people who have the stature and the support of the vast majority of the public to become president. In Albania, Mr. Nishani was not one of these people.
It’s not that the other candidates Albanians knew of in advance were any better. Artan Hoxha’s candidacy, for example, was a disaster for a couple of reasons: He had a history with the former communist security service, and thus would have been an easy pray for blackmailing, and he had publicly defended the government in mistakes were simply unforgivable.
As the ruling majority decided to choose one of its employees as the next president, there is no doubt a large part of the Albanian society has the right to be skeptical and adopt a wait-and-see attitude regarding Mr. Nishani as head of state.
The only hope for those wanting the office of the head of state to function as it was intended under the constitution is for Mr. Nishani to stop anyone from dictating presidential policy. He must chart his own course.
