TIRANA TIMES EDITORIAL
It is said that in places like Belgium, the country can be without a government for months (and it has in the recent past) and the country still runs smoothly thanks to the strength of the state and its bureaucracy. Nothing can be further from that in Albania. The state doesn’t run smoothly in the best of times, but it is proving itself particularly weak during this summer of post-election transition as Albanians see one government out and wait for the next to be sworn in.
After holding smooth elections, the country is going a not-so-smooth transition, particularly because the ebbing strength of the state – which is problematic even under normal conditions, but which is no showing troubling signs.
First, rule of law has been challenged more than usual. In addition to rampant illegal construction, crime is up in alarming numbers – and authorities can barely keep up. Family crime and violence against women is disturbing enough, and happening at increasing rates, but when highway robbery makes a return, as it did in two cases in northern Albania last week, it is a huge problem. Headlines this week showed that one Montenegrin family was robbed on the main highway between Kosovo and Albania. Another family from Albania fared even worse נfour members were shot and wounded as the driver didn’t stop for masked gunmen in a rural patch of road near Puka. Most Albanians have said enough is enough, and such headlines stand to deal a devastating blow to the country’s tourist season, which relies heavily on ethnic Albanians from the former Yugoslavia who travel to the Albanian coastline.
Most are blaming the police leaders for not doing enough because they are likely to lose their jobs once the new government comes in. Regardless, it is unforgivable for law enforcement to allow this to go on. Police first and foremost serve the people and are an apolitical force, regardless who is in power. Furthermore, it is worrying that the society at large sees such transition time as a time of weakness for the state.
Second, the bigger problem here is that Albania is going through this transition in political conflict, a sign of worst things to come.
The country’s president recently gathered the leaders of a series of independent institutions and essentially warned them there would be some sort of revanchist approach from the new government toward them, and that they should stay strong.
Such approach and wording by the president were as improper as any attack on any independent institutions. Such wording further contributes to a sense of political conflict during the transition. Albania needs strong and truly independent institutions – the key word there is that they should be independent of all political parties and loyal to the state.
At the end of the day, the degree of weakness the state is showing during this period of transition is alarming. Measures need to be taken to make sure executive power and state power are two different things, with the second keeping strong regardless of whom is in charge.
