Head of State [their] as conductor of the interests of the political oligarchy

Romeo Gurakuqi *

The fate of the election of the President of the Republic is once again found in the troubled hands and souls of the three authoritarian leaders, of the three political parties, and a fourth, of the background, which is hidden somewhere in the suburban lodges of Tirana. At first glance, for the public, it seems as if the Grand Master of this formal ceremony has been appointed the spokesman of the parliamentary socialists, Mr. Balla. But in fact, the real decision-making takes place elsewhere, where the public does not penetrate and the media run by the oligarchy, has no chance to enter.

We are not dealing with an approved legal procedure or the application of customary constitutional rules, nor with classifications based on public interests for high character, intellectual, purity of figure, wealth, and security adequacy, but with a negotiation, according to me, primitive, not serious, worthy of the Arnaut Pashallek Bazaar.

Albania of 2022 is far from the way appointed by the founders, the prime minister, and the ministers in November 1912, March 1914, December 1918, and January 1920, as well as the Regency of 1920-1924, after the fundamental spirit of the state, the conventions on the regional and cultural balances on which the agreement of our state existence is built, the peaceful future of the country in Europe, has been silently crushed by them and their accompanying hawks, waiting to legalize mines, hydropower plants, wells and oil, resorts and money from the reconstruction process.

Today's stage and behind-the-scenes decision-makers are negotiating the presidential issue, in their 'simultaneous' way, of allishverish between practical people, of people who do not know what is the homeland of Naim, Fishta, and Konica, the correct reading of the state-building tradition of Vlora, Durres and Lushnja, the public interest described by True Dissidence, state security defined by Brussels. Their decision-making in the coming days will not come, not even from reading and studying the current needs of a country that has an emergency to get rid of the corrupt regime, from the brutality of ignorance that has gripped Parliament, from the rule of mediocrity and inter-party beneficiaries, from the omnipotence of unscrupulous oligarchs, from the violence of the organized crime that has turned politics into a vassal.

If the public gets the impression that there is a clash between them, it has nothing to do with the high stature required by the post in question. They want one of their Order, a humble one, who did not spoil the character and wealth of the children, while the individual future of the most prominent characters, 'travels' towards the great strangers, the daily anxiety, the cries in between of light, from the fears of nights without eating.

To understand and prove this, it is enough to recall how they reacted to the first politician in this transition, who tried to establish a set of very basic rules and criteria and a very formal procedure, to arrive at a reduced number. of acceptable presidential candidates, Mr. Alibeaj: although the proposal was incomplete and imperfect from the point of view of feasibility, while it would have to be accompanied by preliminary constitutional intervention, in unison, the controllers rushed to crush it, for fear that the process and protagonism were escaped from the hands, profiling could lead to the most unwanted and the most unmanageable.

Do we know where we are and who wants to impose on us again this decision of such high public interest? I would like to remind you that: in 31 years, the same ones who could not build a genuine, fully specialized state hospital with modern examination and treatment standards, a single contemporary public university that enters the normal ranks for OECD countries, a gymnasium comparable at least to the Gymnasium of Tirana in the 1930s, 1940s, a police force comparable to the gendarmerie of the Kingdom of Albania, want now, today, when the attention of the Allies is maximum for our Euro-Atlantic destiny, in the days when Albania is in full turn to have a European leader intellectually and politically worthy of the western security desk, to wash in the highest office of the state, their desirable pattern and caught in a hook. They want a man who does not call for the demolition of the towers that are being built in the Great Park of Tirana, the comfort of the Crown, the tranquility of the beaches between the beaches, the perpetuation of the concession lands on the coast, the ping-pong theater of Boulevards, hydropower plants, mines and incinerators obtained with government permission.

They are the ones who have crushed the freedom of the citizen, who does not dare to speak a word, worse than in the last time of Ramiz Alia. It is enough to see how they have killed political freedom within their parties and how in the choir they all cheer and repeat the irrational theses of the leadership, to understand the difference with the freedom we had in December 1990, 1991, and 1992.

Finally, I want to recall where they have turned press freedom: in every non-free country of the world, the press is under pressure or the tacit or open command of power, viz. of government. Something completely strange, special, much more complex is happening in Albania, which international evaluators find difficult to understand: the press is under pressure, order, and a threat warned by a much wider spectrum of subjects, by a number of wings, visible and invisible programmable public opinion processors, through media ownership or occult connections of finers, controllers, politics in general from all sides. No one can go before them and justifiably overthrow them in a medium, 'Theses', the sophisms, in reality, thrown by the Almighty,

Prime Minister Edi Rama says that he is not to blame for this situation created in the Albanian media and the fall of the standard of this fourth power in the protection of public interests, since he has not punished any of his critics. This second part of his assessment may well stand. But the full question that arises is:

Who is in charge of law enforcement institutions for punishing controllers who abuse the inviolability of hawks?

Who is in charge of deciding on legislation that improves media freedom and punishes perpetrators operating underground ?!

Is he the distributor of flattery for flatterers of government activities?

Who created the 'theater' of false happiness in Albania?

As for the topic under consideration, the question for the head of the majority is: Were not 9 years enough for him as head of the government to improve the legal and constitutional framework, the organic acts for the election of the Head of State, without crisis and without improvisations such as this one that is happening these days?

In the end the general question arises:

Can the multiple architects of an authoritarian, kleptocratic, non-European system make solutions today for the good of Albania and despite the infamous heritage we are leaving behind?

Personally, I do not believe that in the current situation and with the tight circle of decision-making invented in these hours, the presidential product will come out of the anti-state, not at all patriotic schemes that the current political class has turned into the tradition of today's evil times.

It would be appropriate, before moving further on this line that leads nowhere where it will have to lead us, those people with reasons who have remained in the Albanian Parliament, to start the meeting of a Constitutional Commission, for making a number of necessary changes, not only for the predictions of the election of the Head of State but above all, for the prerogatives of the high state post, as a stabilizer of the system, a guarantor of national and cultural unity and a controller of the secularism of the public sphere. Even though the election of the President could be delayed. The current constitution has a transitional solution, which gives enough time for rational change toward strengthening the state and balance between powers.

* Former deputy of PD. Historian.