FLASH
Shkruar nga Mero Baze
What is striking in the six municipalities is that it seems as if the Socialist Party has appointed the candidates for the DP...
The partial elections in six municipalities, covering approximately forty percent of Albania's electorate, are a chance for an opposition that has been saying since the first day after the May elections that it wants a caretaker government and new elections, the elections offered within the year are a chance to prove that the opposition is ready for a new battle.
What is striking in the six municipalities is that it seems as if the Socialist Party has appointed the candidates for the DP as well.
The candidates are mainly people called for "sacrifice", in order not to damage the image of the DP. In Tirana, Berisha nominates an employee of his son, in Berat a candidate who in 2019 broke the boycott and ran for the Democratic Conscience, which was hardly happy to find someone to run. In Vlora, they have found a candidate who is closer to the SP than to the DP. In Cërrik and Tepelena, the DP itself has been notified of who has run on their behalf.
And it's not that the DP was caught unprepared for these elections. It knew about three municipalities before May 11, after they ran for deputies. It knew about Tirana since February that it was without a mayor. Only Vlora and Cerrik were added along the way.
The fact that the DP failed to run any DP figures in these six municipalities shows that it is no longer ready to compete as a party. On May 11, that party fulfilled its main interests, which was to restore the Berisha family's control over the party, making all the actors within it comfortable, and is now preparing for a long four-year sleep, in the hope that the SP will fall on its own and they will come to power.
The lack of DP candidates in these elections is not simply a matter of human resources, nor is it a lack of confidence in the DP in the elections, as is often presented.
It is true that DP political figures do not want to run, but not simply because they will lose. The DP also ran in 1997, 1998 or 2000, when they knew they would lose. But no one hesitated, as they believed they were investing political capital that would be recognized later.
What the DP has now understood is that it is no longer your political power or investment in raising the party's profile that matters, but your relationship with the Berisha family. For this reason, no one goes into battle, not because they are afraid of losing, but because they are afraid that the battles they fight will not be recognized as honorable.
It is what has happened in the last two years, with all the voted figures of the DP, that has made everyone understand that it doesn't matter how many votes you get, it doesn't matter if you come out first in the primaries, it doesn't matter if you have sacrificed for the DP.
What matters is how you deal with the Berishas.
Lini një Përgjigje