By Urim Bajrami
After a hot summer, during which the Socialist leader, Edi Rama, refused to back his predecessor, Fatos Nano, in his failed bid for Albania’s presidency, the country’s main opposition party now appears to be heading for an icy winter.
The chill winds were ushered in by ex-Prime Minister Nano, who announced last week that he was setting up a new Movement for Solidarity with the aim of rebuilding and reforming the Socialist Party, PS. Nano’s new organization is widely seen as a platform to help him regain the party chairmanship which he gave up after the Socialists lost the parliamentary elections in July 2005.
The rift between Rama and Nano and the expected struggle for power within the PS pose a threat to the party that is as serious as any since it was formed in 1991 to become the successor to the communist Albanian Workers’ Party of the late dictator, Enver Hoxha.
Even the departure of ex-Prime Minister Ilir Meta, one of the party’s most active leaders, in order to form the Socialist Movement for Integration in 2004, was not worse in its impact than the current struggle for power within the Socialists’ ranks.
If Rama wins the battle to consolidate his control over the PS, he would have to deal with a divided political organization. In the best of scenarios for the party, Nano and his supporters would depart to form a new political organization of their own. In the worst-case scenario, they would remain a strong force inside the party, pushing ahead with the struggle to take over its leadership.
In either case the party would be at loss to provide the kind of strong, well-functioning opposition that Albania so desperately needs. Even worse, it could deteriorate into a political organization whose principal goal would be nothing more than to pass the electoral barrier.
Albania is undergoing a prolonged transitional stage, during which the stabilization and strengthening of its institutions remain a critical requirement to progress toward European integration.
The rivalry in the PS between Rama and Nano exacerbates a situation of political uncertainty at a time when a series of reforms vital for the country’s future require broad cross-party cooperation between government and opposition.
Though, politically weaker than before, Nano still has a strong base in the party and its leadership, a part of which was promoted through the ranks by his patronage. He managed a come-back against former Prime Minister Meta before, similarly he may be able to upstage Rama also. However, this time round his chances seem slimmer.
Since he became PS Chairman, Rama has institutionalized his slogan, “A new kind of politics”, as the political platform of his party. He has branded Nano, the party’s previously long-serving leader, and his supporters as representatives of the “old politics,” a sharp contrast that reflects the fact that there is very little chance of reconciliation between them.
For now neither of the rivals is showing signs of being prepared to come out of the trenches of political warfare. While rallying his supporters in Tirana when he set up his new movement last week, Nano, accused Rama of authoritarian traits of leadership and of disregard for party institutions.
The former leader has turned a personal row with his successor into a struggle to remove Rama and his supporters from the party. Although it was Nano who had helped catapult Rama into top jobs, first as minister of culture and then as his candidate for mayor of Tirana, the two politicians have not got on well for years, particularly since Rama became the PS leader.
A pattern became established in which Nano was trying to make life difficult for his successor, who initially had little support within the party’s organization, while Rama was determined to exclude his predecessor from a role in the PS leadership.
Relations between the two have gone from bad to worse this year. Nano met his arch-rival, Prime Minister Sali Berisha of the Democratic Party, PD, in January to secure his path to the presidential palace. Five years earlier a deal between the two – when Nano’s Socialists were in government – resulted in the PD being allowed to nominate a candidate, Alfred Moisiu, who was then duly elected president by Albania’s parliament.
This time, however, the refusal of Rama to make Nano the official candidate of the opposition, dealt a heavy blow to the presidential aspirations of the former Socialist leader. Rama’s strategy was to try to block the election of a president – Berisha’s PD-led coalition lacked the required majority in parliament to push through its own candidate – and to precipitate early elections for parliament.
To ensure that Nano’s faction among the PS deputies would not join the governing majority in a deal to get the former Socialist leader elected as president, Rama organized an opposition boycott of parliament. In the first round of voting Nano was easily beaten by the coalition government’s candidate, Bamir Topi, who, however, failed to get the 60 per cent of votes needed to be elected.
Nano was eventually thrown out of the presidential race after the head of the small Democratic Alliance Party, Neritan Ceka, joined the contest, and pushed the former prime minister into third place.
Disappointed by Rama’s lack of support, six of Nano’s supporters ignored their party’s boycott of parliament and in the third, and final, round voted for Topi, ensuring his election.
Rama accused Nano’s allies of a deal with Berisha, thereby disregarding party interests, which for him are also linked to the interests of the country. The six MPs who broke with party discipline were subsequently thrown out of the PS. That started a new phase in the feud between Rama and Nano, who has now responded with the formation of his new movement inside the party.
The fiasco over the presidential race has brought out into the open the rifts within the Socialists. On one side there are the MPs who have lined up behind their former leader, and who know that Rama will never ever back them for another term if they want to stand for parliament again. On the other side there are the PS leaders’ supporters who have a clear idea that, given the chance of a return to power within the party, Nano would show no mercy towards them either.
Squeezed between Rama, Nano and their respective blocs, the Socialists risk losing their position as a viable alternative to the current government. That would be to the detriment not only of the PS, but also of Albanian politics which are badly in need of a strong and united opposition.
Urim Bajrami is Deputy Editor in chief of the daily newspaper Shqip. Balkan insight is the online publication of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network.
