FLASH
Shkruar nga Skënder Minxhozi
It is no coincidence that the official start of the election campaign in Albania is coinciding with the announcements of the official visits that the French president and the British prime minister will make in parallel with the holding of the Summit.
Edi Rama would like the European Political Community Summit to be held on its original, rumored date, May 9. So two days before the elections. For understandable reasons of correctness in relation to the Albanian vote, this date was inappropriate, but this does not mean that the marketing that this event is producing is less important for the organizers. That is, for the socialist government and its prime minister, who is known for organizing and protocols of this nature.
It is known that Rama excels in preparing such events, dealing with every invitation, the food menu, where guests will sit and the decor of the halls and the red carpet that awaits delegations at the entrance. All this has an additional major reason, beyond the details for which Rama is known to be "sick": a Summit of this format is the most beautiful electoral gift that the prime minister would have chosen blindly even if he had been asked ten times in a row!
This summit returns Rama to his favorite comfort zone: foreign policy. A sphere of policymaking that, in the case of the Socialists, also compensates for the consumption of a long stay in power. In fact, in 12 years of leading the country, with the ups and downs of the economy, the lack of efficiency at various levels of government, cases of corruption and broken promises, foreign policy has regularly been the battle horse of the current majority that has brought the socialist caravan out of the deadlock.
Finding the European passport as a symbol of the electoral campaign comes as an almost mandatory act for Edi Rama, as the icon of the greatest success of his four-year government, clouded by SPAK and other domestic political stagnation.
In the last four years, negotiations with Brussels were opened and the country recovered from the pandemic-hit tourism industry. Currently, we are, to everyone's surprise, a distinguished country in doing Brussels' homework. So distinguished that the Enlargement Commissioner publicly declares that the negotiations will be closed by 2027!
On the other hand, tourism has been affirmed without the slightest doubt as the most successful economic activity of the Rama governments since 2013. A balance of millions of foreign tourists, in parallel with the opening of the first chapters of negotiations with the European Union, are two hands that wash each other in the process of normalization and opening the country to the world.
Even a seemingly superficial episode, that of the arrival of a French president in Tirana twice within a year and a half (such a president had never set foot on Albanian soil before), constitutes an advantage that Edi Rama is using in this election atmosphere, placing the Summit right in the middle of Skanderbeg Square. As if to say publicly and forcefully that this is his real arsenal in the competition with his opponents.
The election date is offering a unique bonus to Prime Minister Rama. A Summit that gathers in the center of Tirana a space of countries that start in the Caucasus and end on the British Isles. It is no coincidence that the official start of the election campaign in Albania is coinciding with the announcements of the official visits that the French president and the British prime minister will conduct in parallel with the holding of the Summit, the first on May 17 and the second on the 15. If you add to this duo Von Der Leyen, Chancellor Merz, Meloni, Zelensky, Erdogan and two dozen other leaders of the continent, the menu of May 16 becomes "heavy in calories".
Thus comes and repeats a situation familiar to all of us Albanians, where the opposition announces every week the imminent isolation of the socialist government on the international level and this type of prediction is regularly refuted by what happens on the ground. Where the intricate web of relations with states and institutions is woven, and where Edi Rama has shown that he knows how to swim more skillfully than with the construction of a water supply in Kukës or a piece of road in Përmet.
We have learned enough in these 30-odd years that this circumstance, namely maintaining close relations with the most important countries and international institutions, constitutes a coefficient that serves not only the personal careers of our political leaders, but also the country itself. A small and economically and security-exposed state like Albania has a constant need to maintain and strengthen relations with friends and partners.
The 12-year balance of the left-wing government on the domestic front has long shown signs of aging and wear and tear. It is a balance that would put the victory of a fourth term at risk if it were not accompanied in the background by a continuous and in some aspects even unexpected process of openness and close cooperation with the main countries of Europe and the USA.
This is the real mortgage of Rama's government in the last four years, when negotiations with the EU opened and when millions of tourists "suddenly" discovered that coming to Ksamil is as beautiful and comfortable as going to a Greek island in the Aegean.
Foreign policy and tourism, summarized under the notion of "opening" the country, are the real success of the 12-year socialist government. Which contrasts even more when placed in front of the difficult position of the main opponent Sali Berisha. A veteran politician who once welcomed George Bush in Tirana, and today rejoices and slaps his face that the Greek embassy invited him to the national holiday, while Trump's advisor Lacivita has already become a kind of electoral ghost for him and the Albanian opposition! This is a very different position from that of the opponent who is preparing the red carpet for May 16!
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