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by Altin Gjeta
"The Democratic Party is at the most critical moment in its 30-year history." This is how important figures within the party and external observers of political life in Albania have expressed themselves. In the foreground, the source of the PD crisis is the loss of the April 25 elections and the announcement of non-women by the State Department (DASH) of Sali Berisha, the founder, and leader who has marked the history of the party in opposition and power for more than two decades.
Losing the election after eight years of opposition was a strong blow to the DP and the Albanian opposition as a whole. In the pre-political, para-democratic, and pre-capitalist field where Albania has been operating for three decades, the state has become the actor and the main economic resource in the country. Thus, whoever holds power seizes the state and the lion's share in the economy, education, health, employment, and so on. The victory of the Socialist Party (SP) for the third consecutive term has left the PD out of this modus operandi.
On the other hand, the expulsion of Sali Berisha from the parliamentary group disrupted the status quo in the party. Lulzim Basha has legitimized his position at the helm of the Democratic Party for eight years from the support sometimes open, sometimes under Berisha's dual silence. The blow of the latter by DASH and then by Basha himself highlighted the problematic relationship between them, which had overshadowed the structural weaknesses of the party and successive mistakes, such as the exclusion of important figures in 2017, exit from the political system, the secession of Basha's leadership by the membership and intellectual elite around the DP, as well as holding internal electoral processes facade.
However, trying to localize this crisis only at the door of the DP is wrong and does not take into account the structure and political realities where it operates. The truth is that the DP is manifesting part of the crisis of the political system because at the moment it seems to be the weakest link in the rusty political chain of post-communist Albania.
During these years, Albania has not managed at any moment to install a functioning democratic system. First of all, the post-communist political elite has consciously failed to build an independent and professional justice system. The rule of law is the main mechanism that not only guarantees the protection of the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual in a democratic society but also enables the balance of power, controls, and holds abusers of power accountable. Thus, justice serves as a safety valve that channels social and political tensions by guaranteeing the circulation of elites and more accountable governance.
In the absence of the rule of law, the institution of elections could serve as a control mechanism and regulator of the power and internal life of political parties. However, elections in Albania have been undermined at every cell and level. The findings of the latest OSCE / ODIHR report on the April 25 elections, such as the use of state resources by the SP for campaigning, vote-buying, and voter patronage, are just the tip of the iceberg in the great sea of surgical manipulation of voter will.
The contestation of the elections has given the alibi to the mayors to maintain their positions within the political parties using almost the same methods used by the ruling party. This has undermined the citizens' trust in politics, has bunkered political parties by turning them into exclusive political institutions. According to researchers Acemoglu and Robinson, the main reason why nations fail lies in the fact that they create closed political and economic institutions. According to them, this model produces social and economic misery, as well as deprives citizens of fundamental freedoms and rights. In closed political systems, economic resources are controlled and placed in the function of keeping in power and enriching a handful of people at the expense of the excluded majority.
In the circumstances we are in, the chances for Albania to build a functioning and independent justice system in the short term are slim. Therefore, the only mechanism that can open the political system is free and fair elections at the intra-party and political level. Without crossing this path, Albania will continue to produce cyclical crises with devastating consequences for the country. The crisis that has gripped the DP today is just one of the symptoms of the decay of the entire post-communist political system. Without guaranteeing the mechanism of voting and real competition, there is no way out of the autocracy either for the DP or for the country.