05.07.2021 – 14:19
As the passing of days brings events back to the annual monotony, the opposition finds itself in an unusual situation. It lost the election for the third time and for the first time the government managed to win 12 years of government. Under these conditions, the situation of the opposition is unpredictable.
Can the PD be the representative of the opposition and, if so, how can it be?
In an analysis for the newspaper “Panorama”, Agron Gjekmarkaj, now also elected MP of the Democratic Party, gives some ideas on how the largest opposition party can again be a governing force. From admitting mistakes with the strategy of burning mandates and denying elections, to the new path of opening and re-establishment, Gjekmarkaj shows the way to change.
For the new deputy, Rama did not win, but robbed the third term. On the other hand, he insists that the change in the DP should start with the congress on July 17, where the new leaders of the party are expected to be elected. “DP has it vital to change strategy, discourse, why not people, approaching and not leaving. “It must conclude a 30-year history to open a new one, clearly defining the mission and objectives, especially how it will fulfill them!” But not just at congress.
The whole spirit of the opposition must be reviewed. “How will the post-congress PD function: How decision-making and with authority will its bodies, the authority that until today has lacked both the Presidency and the National Council, not of human quality, but of the form of functioning. DP needs political and social personalities. He must identify them in society, persuade them, take them, beg them if necessary, to serve the country covered with banality and rule “.
DILEMMS AND CHALLENGES OF THE ALBANIAN OPPOSITION
AGRON GJEKMARKAJ
In the ethical field, the entire Albanian society is facing an existential challenge in relation to democracy, the opposition of this country much more. On April 25, the change was not allowed through that system that day by day is consolidating the name as “electoral engineering”. The constituent elements of this corrupt edifice are ingrained in public discourse.
If political life continues in this rut, change becomes impossible, corruption turns into fear, and fear corrupts itself. The CEC openly dictated a favorable decision for the mayor of Mallakastra, who has violated the decriminalization law, hiding the sentence of three years in prison in Greece.
This decision reminds you of the slogan “you have not seen anything yet”. Edi Rama, after robbing the third term, at the height of arrogance, judges that the laws, even though he voted for them himself, have no value anymore. He also gained this security from the strategy we (the opposition) chose to contest the election massacre.
We did not voice popular anger for protest and resistance, consuming a mistake. We chose the factual verification, the preparation of a file of electoral violence, an event that reduces the weight of indignation.
Rama himself will ask us this funny question: “Why didn’t you protest when I stole your elections?”.
Everyone is wondering what the opposition will do, will it choose a cautious or bold behavior. Personally, I think that being an opposition MP is not a job, but a mission. We all need to live with the temporary nature of this mandate in order to be as free as possible to qualitatively fulfill the trust of the citizens. If we make the choice to consider it a job, we fall into conformism, robotism, and mental captivity, betraying the need and desire for change. The DP has concluded a process of electing its chairman on the principle of one member, one vote.
A serious and real race. Personally, I have declared my support for Lulzim Basha, recognizing the merit of trying to defeat the regime, the political maturity that the DP needs after April 25, as well as the superiority over other candidates, appreciating them for the courage of the race. On the other hand, I suffered the fact that there were no stronger candidacies in front of Lulzim Basha.
Why did the PD, at this historic moment, practically find itself with only one high-profile candidate? We should not shy away from asking this question if we want to be honest with ourselves and our supporters. But we also have to ask the other question why the candidates who came out in front of Basha, never talked about election theft.
Today, the DP needs to be re-established and rebuilt. Ahead is the extraordinary congress on July 17, which should open this process, not put a lid on it. DP has it vital to change strategy, discourse, why not people, approaching and not leaving. It must conclude a 30-year history to open a new one, clearly defining the mission and objectives, especially how it will fulfill them.
The DP, and especially Lulzim Basha, must dare to reinvent themselves through a capillary, convincing opposition, with people with moral and political integrity and not blackmailed by either the government or foreigners. In the DP there must be an opinion, several opinions, confrontation between them as a definition of a common cause. Basha does not need “loyalists” whose purpose in life is to always appear in the photo behind him and to “work in the Democratic Party”, this wall that keeps a large number of Democrats away from the headquarters.
The “faithful” are a great misery of a Chekhovian nature, who through this quality justify themselves by undermining every universal principle. Look at the government or the conversion of the SP, which looks like a military unit. Dolls everywhere, dolls, just dolls! The DP should not, cannot, does not need to continue the confrontation to put the puppets in front of the puppets.
Edi Rama can not with political slogans and pathos or our ways so far, but with popular spirit and innovation that we must seek and find. It (the spirit) must be raised as during the spring we left behind and otherwise protected by the opposition with its leader. The DP, today more than ever, needs the truth to admit its mistakes and correct them.
The DP needs courage to look deeply into itself. I have personally supported the 2017 tent, the burning of mandates and the non-entry into the 2019 local elections, even though I was a public figure with no political responsibility, as ways and political means that could overthrow a regime like the one we have.
But they did not give us the right results, we have to ask the question “Why?”.
Today we must admit that we made a mistake in the strategy and approach to the choice made or in the lack of coherence to resist before the monist elections. Admitting the mistake is not a weakness, but a strength, a hope to find the right path for a democratic and European Albania. Lulzim Basha has shown courage, making difficult decisions, he must show the same by acknowledging that they did not succeed.
From these decisions, Edi Rama had, among other things, the opportunity to build his electoral engineering of manipulating the popular will. It must also be acknowledged that the directive from the Israeli PR company not to speak before the election about the electoral massacre we were attending was wrong. Although very qualitative as a campaign, ours focused only on the figure of the mayor, leaving in the shadows the team and the list of deputies. The deputies were not introduced anywhere by Basha.
Preliminary denunciations would make the opposition testimony more credible. The DP leadership has distributed an instruction for analysis and has done well! But this analysis should start from Lulzim Basha, to the most peripheral end of the DP structures. For example, citizens would like to know why the structure for vote protection was only rhetorical, why our candidacies, political leaders or lists of MPs were not announced earlier in relation to the opponent ?!
To the citizens of Tirana (a city where half of the Albanians live) it should be explained why the DP did not make a more intellectual and representative offer with its list, even though it did not lack people with political and civic integrity? Also, in Shkodra or Durres, Gjirokastra and elsewhere?
PD, where it dared in Elbasan, Kukës, Lezhë, recovered, won, overcoming manipulation. The DP needs internal debate and its dialectic for nuances of communication and not for mule language. The ordinary DP should not treat it as tragic, because when it arrives the ominous one looks like the ordinary. We must also acknowledge that we have not been effective in the international media in international relations in general and especially with the US in the face of Renaissance propaganda.
But the underlying issues are different. How will the post-congress DP function: How decision-making and with authority will its bodies, the authority that until today has lacked both the Presidency and the National Council, not of human quality, but of the form of functioning. DP needs political and social personalities.
He must identify them in society, persuade them, take them, beg them if necessary, to serve the country covered with banality and rule. How will it respond to society’s need for partnership, openness, historical memory and modernization, where everyone feels part of the decisions and causes and not the running yesman.
Apparently, the DP is under pressure and in a difficult moment, but it depends entirely on it, all of us as part of it to turn this into a time of glory, making frontal opposition in Parliament, in the streets and squares where want Albanians, all those who feel stolen and humiliated. The opposition can. Basha can, we can, but not more carefully, but with much, much, courage and without any complex.
Victory passes by truth and bravery, by the force of will and ideas. It is not brought about by conformism, servility and blind obedience. The DP had this experience in 1992, 2005 and 2009. Neither the society nor the elites are forced to be appointed, but only in partnership, you have to identify its representatives.
First, we must demonstrate to them that we do not accept election theft and immediately after that we match the words with the facts in any case today, tomorrow and onwards. The Congress of July 17 must open the perspective of change of the DP and of course of Albania. It should not be funeral music for the electoral massacre, but struggle, hope, courage and ideas.
It cannot be summed up in two sentences: “How bad Rama is” and “How good we are”; it would be reductive, repetitive and not at all hopeful.
Much depends on Lulzim Basha, knowing the power of the leader in the party and the prevailing mentalities to adapt unconditionally to his will. How ready is he to change, to doubt, to believe positively, to question and to be discussed as part of the dream for change that did not die after April 25, how much power will he have to replace the Basha of television with him? of conversation, of the table with qualities it does not lack.
Basha said the right thing: “The change was not stolen from the DP, but from the Albanians”. Many of them are willing to continue without compromise to achieve it.
They demand a determined opposition, which knows how to change as part of the promised change. Defeating a corrupt regime is possible, and it happens when society recognizes your moral and mental card, the right to do so. Mother history teaches us this, in our dac in the dac of the world.
We must try to do something beyond our personal and partisan interests for this country that is being desolated and losing its dignity in the face of corruption, crime money, rigged elections, tribal units, building an undisputed emancipatory model for the DP, emancipatory for The SP and above all emancipators for the society that seeks it.
Very soon, the society will turn its eyes back to the opposition and Lulzim Basha. They and he need to grasp it, tune in to it, and for that they need support and congratulations for trust and control. Truth sets us free, Jesus Christ said shortly before holding the Cross.
