Today in the Central Committee, Edi Rama: a Ramiz Alia with Brioni

Alfred Lela

With the folklore trial, held today at the Presidency of the Assembly, the infamous former home of the Central Committee of the Labor Party, the Prime Minister marked the end, at least symbolically, of Edi Rama as the former pedagogue, the former controversialist, the former colorist of the political scene. Rama started in the middle of the gray, intending to color Tirana, politics, and Albania, with the bright colors of modernity, and ended on a Wednesday in late February as the epitome of the gray, of the old. A Ramiz Alia dressed in Brioni.

How unfortunate for him!

If the above is a breakdown of the symbolism that Rama unveiled today in the middle of Tirana, what is politically relevant is the significance of his irritation with SPAK.

First, and most importantly, based on Rama's information and intuition, SPAK is slowly centering the object of attack, moving closer to the center of power. Automatically, such centering makes the Special Prosecutor's Office appear externally as the instrument that will reflect the political changes in Washington and their projections in Tirana. Not only the changes as such, but also a 'bad blood', still unsettled, both in Washington and in Tirana, related to the name of Charles McGonigal and the file that follows him.

Secondly, the exchange of fire with SPAK has deprived Edi Rama of the only electoral 'program' he had prepared for the May 11 elections. The Prime Minister had begun, throughout 2024, and perhaps even earlier - the preparation of the main electoral platform for this year's elections: Justice reform, carried out exclusively by the SP - according to him, and exemplary sentences, including 'ours' whom "we did not protect".

The imagination of this easy campaign was questioned, first by the end of the elections in America and, subsequently, by the way Trump is exercising the presidency or the people he is choosing to lead the affairs. Some of these are hard-liners, detractors of the corruption of the Biden administration, including Albanian issues, such as the McGonigal case or the non-grata of Sali Berisha. You can include Lee Zeldin, the former congressman, or Dan Bonginon, who was just appointed deputy director of the FBI.

With the latter's appointment as deputy to another radical like Kash Patel, Rama is alarmed by the possibility of reopening the McGonigal file, part of which the Department of Justice has sealed.

All the Prime Minister's discomfort, his agitation, are related to these developments. So, both the rally in Skanderbeg Square and the meetings of the socialist parliamentary group are not an attempt [so unexpected!] to protect Veliaj, but to prove the strength that comes from powerlessness. More than a scolding of SPAK, they are a struggle to regain the lost negotiation with the Americans. Neither Hunter's friends nor the oilmen, neighbors of Mar-a-Lago, can do anything, and each passing day increases anger, degrades behavior, and tightens the noose. 

Today, Edi Rama, almost by hostage-taking, summoned the Rector of a University - which by law enjoys autonomy from the government - and brought him into the Assembly, an institution on paper independent of the Executive, and used himself, the MPs, and the Rector to attack the people of justice, a power also on paper independent.

The accusation that Rama was making against the university students under investigation by SPAK - the defenseless, the small ones - was nothing less than a barricade to protect himself. Rama officially declared war on SPAK when this institution dared to approach him. The staff and the rector of the Agricultural University were nothing more than war by proxy. That is the use of third parties to declare the intentions of the primary party in the conflict.

The opposition has only one duty: to stay out of this firefight. It has been at the center of it for too long, and the anger of the past cannot be an advisor to the present.