Albanians should participate in the democratic process of voting, despite misgivings about the country’s political class.
TIRANA TIMES EDITORIAL
Albanians have already endured months of campaigning even though the official 30-day election campaign is now only in its second week. And this is the sort of campaign that goes to every pore of the country’s being, as articles in this weeks newspaper show.
Top leaders are running around the country making the most outlandish promises: from full employment to full development – if all the pledges are put together and come true in the next four years, Albania will join Norway and Switzerland in being one of Europe’s wealthiest places.
Back to reality, public employees are being forced to attend campaign rallies and are being told that they and their families should vote for the party that holds power in order to hold their job. There also allegations people are getting offers to “sell” their votes – cash in hand.
In addition, the airwaves have as much negative attacks as they do constructive debate.
Faced with that sort of negativity many Albanians – those that can afford to be independent voters – are increasingly switching off.
According to a recent survey, 49.5 percent of Albanians are following the election campaign with little interest, while 18 percent are not interested at all in the messages the political parties are conveying.
Some Albanian voters view the governing and opposition coalitions simply as two political-economic interest groups and fighting for power and money, with little interest in improving Albania or the voters’ lives. It is admittedly a cynical view, but one that has gained grown in the past four years – amid political stalemates that have held the country’s EU bid backward.
This view has given rise to the Vote Blank movement, pushed forward by a couple of media pundits and supported on social media like Facebook by unknown donors. The movement tells people to go to polls and vote, but to purposefully make their votes invalid to protest the country’s political class – in essence protest the fact that they don’t like any of the choices.
For anyone who has followed Albanian politics for the past two decades, such sentiment is understandable – but it is also wrong.
This newspaper agrees with recent statements by the ambassadors of Albania’s key strategic partners and allies, Washington and Brussels: Albanians should not lose sight of what’s important in a democratic process and cast their ballots.
Democracy is indeed all about participation in the voting process. It’s about knowing what you believe and acting on it. If one doesn’t like the current political class, not voting at all only ends up perpetuating it, keeping it power (regardless of the winning party), keeping bad choices stronger for longer.
Albania’s political class is often poor in quality because the unwillingness of good citizens to participate, or worse, their willingness to conform to undemocratic leadership once they are in politics.
As participation starts with voting – good citizens looking to improve things should not waste the opportunity given to them by the system.
They should vote, according to their conscience, for the best available choice within the field of candidates provided.
