FLASH
Shkruar nga Skënder Minxhozi
Few Albanians had time to understand the new parties until May 11th.
Four (not so) young guys were roaming around Albania and the diaspora during the last May 11 campaign. Some of them had been political activists in the past, one even a member of parliament. Few of the voters understood what they represented politically and probably haven't read a single line of their program yet. They know that they are against Rama and Berisha.
Few Albanians had time to understand the new parties by May 11. Not as individuals, but as political projects. And yet Lapaj, Shehaj, Shabani and Qori received a full 164 thousand votes, along with the Basha-Alibeaj and Shehi trio. A quarter of the opposition votes on May 11 were cast not for the ASHM of Berisha, Meta and Mediu but for parties that were running for the first time in the elections. A mountain of votes that in four years came from the large bag of anti-government votes, due to movements and parties that were hastily established, with little funding and with very little recognition in public opinion. Without much joking, a joke is circulating in media circles that challenges anyone to find the numbers two in the parties of Lapaj, Shehaj and Qori. Surely over 95% of Albanians do not know their names!
If we seek to understand May 11, we cannot minimize the final result to just "theft, theft, theft...". Berisha and Meta's haste to attribute their great personal loss, which extended almost across the entire map of the country, solely to the manipulative role of the government. This is an alibi that has already annoyed even the right-wing electorate itself, which has been waiting for 12 years for these old knights of politics to finally pull out the magic card from the cylinder that will lead Edi Rama into opposition.
What has happened instead of the promised victory is a crying chorus that starts in the morning and does not die down even at dinner, even in the studios that are also crying that mourn the elections. The hunt for the moment is called "find the stolen votes", while simultaneously denying "the votes lost because of the bosses' fault"! No one is asking Berisha to account today for why he could not keep the votes. Even though he was the leader of the opposition himself, he assured everyone big and small that this time Rama had no way of holding on since he had secured the votes of the Albanians.
The question that opposition television studios and other media close to the DP and PL refuse to ask is "why don't you resign because you didn't save the votes"?! Because it is certain that someone should have left by now. The "Basha article" that Berisha installed in the party statute says it too, accompanied by irony and criticism of his predecessor. How do you want to resign, because you didn't collect enough votes, or because after you collected them you didn't know how to save them?! Will you leave as unreliable for the electorate, or as incapable of saving your ballot boxes?! These are the questions that no one asks today, but which are the essence of the May 11 defeat.
The reading that the figures highlight shows that, except for the case of the SP, which has maintained its quotas as an old party and as the largest political force of the transition (it received over 850 thousand votes), the other party opposite, that of the PD-PL, has fallen sharply, losing 250 thousand votes compared to 2021. The Berisha-Meta duo, which were seen as the most dynamic electoral format and as the greatest danger to the SP, turned out to be a deflated balloon in relation to the challenge to power.
Half a million votes (529 thousand to be exact) are not a small number to spend four years in opposition peacefully, but they are completely insufficient to aim for government. And the PD-LSI's main goal is power, at least that's what they have told us so far.
The thing is that the political and electoral legacy of these two great symbols of Albanian politics is today under the pressure of erosion from what can be seen as a generational struggle within the country's political elite.
It wasn't just Lapaj, Shehja and Qori who were the problem of Sali Berisha and Ilir Meta on May 11. There are also the new politicians, those who are not tainted with servility towards yesterday's or today's bosses and who can sleep peacefully at night, without fear of any BKH checks at home.
Specifically, Jorida Tabaku and Ilir Alimehmeti received a total of 38.5 thousand votes in the Tirana district on May 11. Meanwhile, the entire ASHM coalition received 164 thousand votes in Tirana. Only two candidates from the open list received a quarter of the votes of the entire old opposition in the capital!
There is no clearer indication than this that the corrosive effect has worked externally, but has also been present within the electorate of the DP and PL. Together with the new parties, the new candidates within the DP are a real challenge to the older generation of democratic politicians who continue to blindly follow the Doctor. There is not a government massacre in the May elections, there is a generational massacre in the ranks of the old Albanian opposition that does not know how to look defeat in the eye and accept it.
Lini një Përgjigje