The failure of mini-parties to be 'new'

Alfred Lela

A showdown in Blendi Fevziu's Opinion on Thursday has prompted quite a few people, I think, to do a retro/perspective of those known as 'new parties'. Starting from the name, if we agree that names are the plates we put on things or phenomena to describe them accurately and quickly, the most accurate name for these formations would be 'mini-parties.' Move the qualifier 'new,' not to de-escalate (diminutive) them, but because now, they are neither new in time nor deed. So, they are not carriers of new ideas.

So far, all that is circulating are old theses, some from the French or Bolshevik Revolution, and some rehashes of theses and ideas that Sali Berisha and Edi Rama have been stating and reiterating for some time.

Whether we agree (or not) to call them 'mini parties' does not constitute the essence of what this information wants or says it is.

The essence is that they are 'new' without being radical, small without trying to be incremental, pre-political without trying to be political, and imitative while pretending to be revolutionary.

For their imitative dimension, it is enough to say that the leaders of these mini-parties. At the same time, they reproach the leaders of the big parties all day long for centralizing power and for 'chairmanship,' repeating the same model with precision. No one knows another individual of these mini-parties except the chairmen. It can even be said that they are the party, the chairman, the structures, and the supporters all in one.

Repeating a model you claim to fight and seek to overthrow undermines the first reason you say it exists.

Solo chairmen reveal the one-man show model, even when they say they do not form alliances or coalitions with each other or other parties on the spectrum. More than that, they reveal that they are parapolitical formations. This is because they give up one of the most fruitful political instruments, conditionality. Except for the case when they are pathologically delusional, they understand that they have no chance of coming to power, neither on their own nor all together. The only way is if they come together, creating a conditional bloc that collects enough votes to be kingmakers, i.e., determiners of the government cabinet. This is the only way for the show to become politics, i.e., they condition the bigwigs with one or more of their ideas for governance.  

But what screams most as a lack in the repertoire of their youth is radicalism. They are thus losing the only opportunity to be radical (their youth and the parties' youth), to offer subversive ideas and solutions, and to seek a rupture of the system and the situation. If you notice their language, it teaches radicalism not as a political idea but as a generation, introducing confrontation into the young/old dichotomy. Which in itself says nothing and is even offensive. There is no superiority in the fact that someone is young; on the contrary, the age of experience is the one with the superiority.

Nor is the other thesis, which is seen as radical, the fight against the oligarchy, such. First, because it is an anti-capitalist idea, therefore essentially harmful, at least as long as there is no alternative to capitalism (and as long as it is not utopian socialism - from which this country's ribs once protruded). Second, we must distinguish ideas and their impossibilities. 'Toppling' the oligarchy, the large private Albanian corporations is neither possible nor advisable. Third, if it is cheap populism to attract attention, it is not our place to even think about it, much less get behind it.

What distinguishes the new, or anti-system, 'sisters' in Europe of our mini-parties, which have advanced so much in the last decade that some of them are approaching power, is that they have gone against the heart of the European system. By being in favor of a return to the national instead of the global, by being against immigration, and even against the EU superstructure itself, that is, by proposing political introversion instead of the extroversion that has existed up until now, they have struck a chord with their electorates.

What similar ideas do our mini-parties propose? Like two drops of water, they resemble the big parties in foreign policy, the approach to the EU and America, immigration, globalism, nationalism, etc. However, their proposals are only marginal refinements. As for them, it is more logical to keep the big parties, which can refine and redefine faster and better, if for no other reason, because of the driving force they provide.