FLASH
Shkruar nga Çapajev Gjokutaj
From the beginning, LaCivita declared that it would export MAGA (Make America Great Again) to Albania, but with a small change, instead of America, Albania would be put in. Then, instead of Trump, Berisha and, the icing on the cake, the Berisha - Rama rivalry would be outlined as a match between Trumpists and Sorosians in Albania.
The DP leadership triumphantly announced that Chris LaCivita would be their campaign's chief political strategist. And everything was justified, their candidate is known in America and beyond as one of the most highly regarded strategists among those who devised Donald Trump's victorious campaign.
Export chalamanan
From the beginning, LaCivita declared that it would export MAGA (Make America Great Again) to Albania, but with a small change, instead of America, Albania would be put in. Then, instead of Trump, Berisha and, the icing on the cake, the Berisha - Rama rivalry would be outlined as a match between Trumpists and Sorosians in Albania.
Seen from a formal strategic perspective, exporting MAGA seems like a laudable idea. Albanians are known as one of the most pro-American nations in the world, so anything that comes from America has a certain charm and attracts favor. In addition, MAGA is inextricably linked to Trump, the global prototype of a strong and authoritarian leader. The history of our mother country has proven that we Albanians accept, and even like, strong leaders who have appeared to us sometimes as monarchs, sometimes as dictators, and sometimes as authoritarian leaders.
The course of events proved that exporting MAGA did not go as easily as Trump's strategist imagined. The first problem arose with the translation into Albanian of the adjective 'great'. If you were to say 'make Albania great again', many would associate it with the political-historical concept 'Great Albania'. Mentioning, even unintentionally or in subtext, border review during an electoral campaign is like breaking a taboo, and even more dangerous. Opening such a chapter would make the DP's relations with internationals more problematic than they already are. Under such conditions, 'great' was translated into Albanian with the word 'madhështore', but even this adaptation seems not to have been entirely successful.
The adjective 'great' is mainly a bookish word and, in addition, it turns out to be overused by the former totalitarian discourse in phrases such as 'great deeds', 'great plans', 'great victories', etc. etc. Based on such uses, a good part of the gray electorate from 50 years of age and older sees in this word not only the bookish style but also connotations of false propaganda: everything was supposed and presented as great, but in the blink of an eye it ended in total collapse. Promoting the idea that you are doing propaganda during an electoral campaign is like taking the place of the proverb that went and woke up the devil while he was sleeping.
The literary and propaganda colorings of the 'great' quality, to one extent or another, were revived in the name 'Alliance for a Great Albania' and, at the very least, seemed to prevent a part of the electorate from creating a spontaneous and unreserved approval.
That MAGA's exportation was not so easy is also proven by the fact that the adverb 'again' was forgotten. The full slogan: 'Let's make Albania great again' was rarely or almost never uttered in the election discourse. And they did well because a significant part of the voters would have laughed: when was Albania great?
The magic hat
The problems created by the export of MAGA prove that political strategists find it necessary to know the language, customs and mentality of the country where they agree and are paid to work. This work of not knowing the mentality and customs is reminiscent of the changes in Berisha's visual image during the campaign. LaCivita seems to have proposed putting a baseball cap on the leader's head and tying a yellow tie around his neck, so that voters would be reminded of Trump and, of course, of his victory.
In principle, we are dealing with a common and often fruitful technique taken from electoral campaign manuals. The visual image of the leader, when he is hit, constitutes a very influential element. The baseball cap and yellow tie in this case would be almost magical, but the chances are that Berisha's visual appearance as Trump did not work as expected. And the reason is simple.
For almost three decades, Sali Berisha has created in the public the image of a strong, stable and always serious man, who is himself in every situation and almost never acts in the role of someone else. The baseball cap and yellow tie were a violent departure from this solid and universally accepted image and, what is worse, they were adjacent to the blows below the belt that Rama used when he said that Berisha was old and had started to leak, that his lamps were turned off three times a day, etc.
The Sultan's Barber
Among the advice that the strategist from overseas offered to the DP, there were some that smelled of amateurism and led one to suspect that they stemmed from a hasty work rooted in the old colonialist mentality of 'buono per Albania'. In fact, this mentality, mixed with a certain sarcasm, was openly expressed by LaCivita in the conversation filmed as a secret video by some investigative journalists and then published in 'The Guardian'.
Almost all the advice aimed at amortizing the nickname 'Buf' that Rama, disregarding ethics, used to call Berisha throughout the campaign smelled of amateurism. Some verses inspired by the poem 'The Owl' by Edward Thomas that LaCivita posted on X, barely surpassed 100 likes and almost went unnoticed by the mass of voters. It should be added that the poem in question is almost forgotten and, more than by readers of English poetry, is remembered by scholars. Most likely LaCivita or one of his assistants searched for it and found it. For these reasons, it had almost no impact, but it nevertheless acquired a humorous value: to remind us of that student who rushes to finish his homework no matter how.
The publication of a photo of an owl catching a mouse, accompanied by the caption: 'Who is the owl and who is the mouse', came across as a joke that didn't catch on, even though Rama immediately threw it at the thrower, accompanied by the explanation: the mice are the winners of the primaries that the Owl did not include in the closed lists.
Much more amateurish, weak and pale was the explanation that the owl is a smart animal and for these qualities Athena, the ancient goddess of intelligence, kept it close. The problem with the owl of Athens is created by the fact that in the electrified climate of the electoral campaign, more than logical and finely spun arguments, people prefer things that do not require academic elaborations and are quickly perceived. Without even going halfway to antiquity and thinking about Athens, voters flashed in their heads the negative connotations of the word owl in their mother tongue, in Albanian such as: ç'i bakt sajti si buf, buf kënete, si ungjt e bufit, e di dhe bufi etc. These negative connotations are quite used in colloquial Albanian, so used that they have not left the poor owl a chance to gain any appreciation, let alone praise.
From the outside, you can't tell if advice of this level was taken seriously by the DP's public relations people. It's likely that more than for such advice, which was bought at a magic price but looks like a gimmick, the DP used LaCivita's presence to convey the idea that it was now being helped by a person with close ties to the White House, even President Trump himself. And this may have worked with a good part of the militants, even though it brings to mind the old stories with the Sultan's barber.
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