By Tirana Times Editorial Staff
While three short months remain from the moment when the new President of the Republic will be elected, the latest developments within the Socialist Party, the main opposition party, are complicating political life while the process and the candidate who will replace Moisiu constitute a complicated political rebus. Considering that this comes right after the victory of the opposition in the highly politicized local government elections, the situation becomes even more puzzling. The latest developments within SP threaten the unity of the party and may well bring it to a second official division after the first one in 2004 when ex-Prime Minister Ilir Meta left the SP and created the Socialist Movement for Integration. Given the old unity that characterizes the left, two divorces from the “mother party” within three years may very well permanently change the landscape of the Albanian political spectrum.
Are developments within SP a new phase of its internal reform or a mere civil war for power? Who will be the country’s next president? The center-right majority has proposed as its candidate the well-respected chief of DP parliamentary group Bamir Topi, while the left continues to insist on a consensual solution. According to the left, this means that the next president most come from within its ranks, although no specific names have been put forward. Yet, officially at least, one name has been excommunicated by the left. That name is Fatos Nano.
The failure to elect the next President in June with three-fifths of votes in parliament will bring the country to early electionsخot a bad prospect at all for the majority in case the SP is split in half by its “father figure” Fatos Nano.
Reforming SP: “Rama the Radical”
A day after the defeat of the platform of the pro-Nano group in the SP congress, Mr. Nano who was absent in the congress in accordance to his habit of “power projection” just as any good superpower, went on the offensive. As news of Mr. Majko’s resignation from the position of leader of SP parliamentary group filtered in, Mr. Nano brazenly declared that Edi Rama’s political violence and radicalism had destroyed the traditional internal democracy that he, Fatos Nano, cultivated in such fatherly manner. Indeed, according to Mr. Nano, as the defeated Nanoists were quitting their seats after the defeat of their platform, phone calls poured on his cellular phone with the pathetic cries that have characterized the left: “Come baba and save us”! And Mr. Nano promises that he won’t quit until he reforms the party with another cathartic move that will put the country on the safe road to a “Europeanist majority” and himself in the Palace of Brigades. This has become a matter of historical necessityءnother loved concept of the leftخow that Edi Rama “spokesperson of occult groups” has occupied the SP.
The New President: Who are the Players in the Rotating Chair?
What are the chances for Moisiu, Topi, Nano?
It is quite possible for the official opposition to officially support the actual President Moisiu for reelection in June. We say “officially support” since this would not change the fate of Mr. Moisiu. The opposition may do this for two reasons. First, the opposition has never really objected to Mr. Moisiu’s performance. On the contrary, its positions have often been the same as Mr. Moisiu’s. The second reason is that such a step by the oppositionسupporting someone that is not from its own ranksةs a gesture of good will towards consensual choice of president.
However, despite the good will towards him and the considerable number of votes he would get in Parliament was it not for party discipline, the reelection of Mr. Moisiu seems highly improbable. Cooperation between the presidency and the executive since Dr. Berisha came to power in 2005 quickly deteriorated to nothing. Soon, Mr. Moisiu had to deal with severe attacks from the ruling majority which accused him of cooperation with organized crime for not signing the decree of dismissal for the General Prosecutor. Furthermore, given the frequency of presidential vetoes on laws passed by the majority, Mr. Moisiu has practically signed his retirement from the good side of political life.
The government and Mr. Berisha have put forward their own candidate for the presidential post: Mr. Bamir Topi who leads the DP parliamentary group as well as DP deputy chief. He is seen by most observers as a moderate figure that may reach across party lines but who has yet to play outside of the perimeter allotted by Mr. Berisha. While there is no reason to think that the country’s next president should come from the opposition, if he is to be consensual he has to earn the trust of the opposition. And while Mr. Topi’s credits seem to be the highest of the potential candidates of the ma jority, it is doubtful that they are high enough. Fatos Nano, the lone warrior that has no official support from his own party or from any other party, seems to have come back from the nether land where he took flight after his resignation from the SP. He was encouraged by his old nemesis Mr. Berisha who gave him presidential honors in the attempt to solve the electoral reform crisis in January 2007. Now Mr. Nano has only flattering words for Mr. Berisha and calculates that he has enough opposition votes to secure the magic 84 votes needed to become president with the consensus of the majority. Something that may happen only if Mr. Nano does his job of splitting the SP officially and creating a new party before the election of the president.
Will Fatos Nano create a new Socialist Party?
While not threatening this explicitly, Mr. Nano certainly implied it in front of the media. Of course this would be the best scenario for Berisha’s democrats who after squandering their chances of reelection through good governance, may profit from Mr. Nano’s caprice. The implosion of the left from one to three major parties within three years would be mana from Heaven for the DP which need not worry at all about early elections. But, can Mr. Nano hand such a gift to Mr. Berisha?
Given his laziness, most probably not. Given his love of gamblingءnd the way he used Albanian big business while he was in powerءlso most probably not. Nevertheless, he can still rouse a dozen MPs, most of them the old hard working socialist kind that can produce votes. But, their votes are worth nothing if Mr. Nano does not create a new party in order to give the coup de grace to the SP and the opposition in general in the next (early) elections.
NGOs decide on criteria for the next President.
Strange enough for most normal countries, but not in our banana republic with no bananas. One NGO of the kind that gives council on anything and everything has decided to publicize a set of criteria that the country’s next president ought to fulfill. Forget that the country has a constitution which determines how the President may be elected and what criteria the person should fulfill. The lilliputs whose job it is to be at constant war with reality just as Gulliver’s lilliputs were at constant war with the Blefuscudians over the correct way to eat a boiled egg, also need a reason to exist. Thank God for the donors!
The Early Elections Scenario: A good deal for OSCE?
But, they are not a good deal for the country. To go in early elections within the next three to four months means to create an electoral process that will be severely contested. A number of reforms that the opposition and the government have sworn to carry out such as electoral reform, election administration, voters’ lists and ID cards remain in their abstract Platonic form. None of these processes has started yet. Having an electoral process before these reforms would extend the political conflict that has dogged the country for so long and that would be a bad deal for all. Except for the OSCE.
