Why does Blendi Kajsiu analyze 'Berishism' in a test tube, not in real life?

Alfred Lela

Blendi Kajsiu has been visibly concerned with developments in the opposition following the May 11th elections. More precisely, with what he paraphrases al grosso modo as “Berishism.”

In methodology—that is, the tools and research methods chosen to conclude—Kajsiu appears to have the rational end predetermined, using the methodology not as an instrument to reinforce the thesis, but as a lever to move a subconsciously shaped narrative.

In his writings—numerous on this topic—Kajsiu seems to be pursuing a doctorate in “Berishism,” but even here with a methodological deviation: he bypasses context. He treats Berisha and “Berishism” as detached from their circumstances, as something that exists on its own, in a test tube—not in real life—regardless of social and political conditions.

He performs a quantitative, not qualitative, analysis. For this reason, he focuses on “how much Berisha lost,” “how much PD declined,” “how many left and how many joined,” avoiding the very aspect that could most accurately explain what is happening in Albania with elections. That can only be done through a qualitative analysis.

Only this kind of analysis allows one to answer the fundamental question: how is it possible that a Prime Minister like Rama, 12 years in power, wins a fourth mandate despite a governance that, even in the eyes of the most PS-friendly observers, can at best be described as problematic?

If we pose this essential question and use methodology in service of it, then “Berishism” falls apart. The failure to raise this thesis, in Kajsiu’s case and others’, reveals precisely that the authors in question seek to invent an opposition beyond Berisha—because they do not (or do not want to) unpack a power like Rama’s.

Besides avoiding such an analysis, Kajsiu and others fall into a paradox, because they attempt to explain the political superstructure not through the structures of power, but through its challengers.

Another thing they avoid, hidden behind this approach, is explaining society’s powerlessness (including that of the doctoral candidates of this thesis themselves) to produce antibodies against a regime that swells as it ages, and is sanctified even as it grows corrupt.

On this level, I challenge Kajsiu—also because he is perhaps the only among the anti-Doctor doctoral candidates who could pose and develop arguments on this terrain. This is because I don’t think he holds a sponsored thesis of “Berishism”—rather it’s a perspective from which he tries to explain the politics of power/opposition in Albania. Besides, he has the academic training and reading depth to interpret an Albania that—yes—is partly described by “Berishism,” but is not defined by it by default.

That said, it must also be emphasized that treating both Albania’s political scene and Sali Berisha himself the same in the early 1990s as in the mid-2020s is a gross distortion of the goal to offer a comprehensive analysis.

The non-political-science-like focus on “Berishism” and the opposition as an explanation for the impossibility of rotation betrays a desire to leave “rotation” as merely a terminological construct—viewing any change of power that does not happen beyond “Berishism” as a risk.

If Kajsiu and others adopt Rama’s terminology—“there can be no change in power without a change in the opposition”—then power never changes. Because societal expectations are canceled through simulation, and the premise shifts from “change of power” to “change of opposition.” Given that the opposition, by definition, has far fewer tools and methods of narrative/propaganda/influence/pressure, there will always be incentives and mechanisms in the courtyard of power to “politologically prove” that the opposition hasn’t changed—even when it has (say, even if—as many left-wing analysts seem to desire—another doctor, Ilir Alimehmeti, comes to lead the right).

This paradox, where a self-declared leftist like Kajsiu speaks of the dangers posed by the minority as greater than those of the majority—and demands that the minority be purified, while power continues to marinate in the same vices—is an ad absurdum in itself.

On the other hand, Kajsiu avoids the “other” opposition from intellectual debate—a topic that Bushati, with whom he has sparred indirectly three times recently, has touched upon: the groupings of Shehaj, Lapaj, and Qori. If Berisha is Kajsiu’s hostage—and the hostage-taker of the broader opposition block (PD)—then why didn’t voters (unpressured, according to Kajsiu) migrate to the Independent or New Opposition block?

For a simple reason: when the machinery of power distorts elections, it does not differentiate among “oppositions.” As a mechanism of the superstructure, it cannot be eclectic (selective). It is egalitarian in the worst sense—it suppresses all equally: Berisha and Shehaj alike. It makes no distinction between them, because it considers only itself as the distinction—note Rama’s rhetoric: “we’re not the best, but there’s no one better than us.”

Here is another dimension where Kajsiu could untangle his reasoning: why, even when there were alternatives beyond “Ramaism” and “Berishism,” were they ignored by the electorate? So much so that even a party like PSD of Tom Doshi, which could be viewed as a byproduct of the system, if we use Kajsiu’s reasoning—won more MPs than “The Young Ones.”

For this reason, I think Kajsiu needs to return to qualitative analysis. That is, how Rama has qualitatively transformed (by which I mean the essence, not the quality in a normative sense) the political and electoral landscape in Albania.

Numbers unsupported by facts do not explain reality—they engineer it. And that is the nature of the question: why does power grow when the nature of power itself is regressive?

In this case, let us remember the essential point: we are speaking of a democracy, not an autocracy!