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Berisha e vrau opozitën me listat e mbyllura

2024-07-26 20:30:00, Opinione CNA

Berisha e vrau opozitën me listat e mbyllura

Andi Bushati

Sali Berisha's decision to accept Rama's variant against open lists is not only a moral and image blow to the opposition. With the years he has been at the head of the DP and with all that he has passed on his back, the "non grata" leader seems unoxidizable in the face of such scruples.

So, the accusations that he repeated an occult pact with his greatest enemy, that he made a similar agreement in 2008, anathema by all, or that he betrayed the Albanian citizens, whom he promised to decide with the vote of who they want to take to parliament, will leave very few stains on his portrait.

In this sense, accepting the de facto closure of the lists, Berisha's problem is neither hypocrisy nor incoherence, which he already takes for granted. The great damage he has done to the opposition is political. This is for several reasons... First, by closing the lists, the expansion of the PD is curbed, the approach of new figures by presenting it, together with the Renaissance, as part of a closed caste, the glass ceiling of which no one I can't break it to climb up. And when it is known that in the conditions of a regime, that as much as it seduces you by corrupting you, it scares you by blackmailing you, increasing the ranks of the opposition constitutes a difficult challenge, losing the opportunity to seduce new figures, means neither less nor more than a crime.

And why would a young man, an engaged citizen, or someone who has come to the tip of his nose from Rama's banality and ordinary robbery face the pressure of the patronage system, when he knows that in the opposite camp, the safe places have occupy in advance and without competition, Flaguri, Gazi, Luciano, Albana, Oerdi or Tritani? What motivation would they have to join a group that invites everyone to a front against evil, but when they knock there they find the doors locked?

To give this shrinking message just a few months before the election is killer for the opposition.

Secondly, by leaving the possibility to only 10 or 11 deputies (if we take the result of 2021 as a basis), to be elected by the free will of the electorate, Berisha kills with his own hand the hope for activism and revival of the DP, which he stimulated during the tour legendary pulpits. Then, in an attempt to take back the party from Basha, who had made it sleepy and bureaucratized, he played the opposite card, that of reviving the militants. For this purpose, he made strong proposals such as those of primaries and factions of different opinion. But today, they have turned into an illusion. What is the meaning of the primaries from now on, when the candidates for deputies are imposed from above? What is the meaning of an alternative grouping, when those who want to go to parliament, do not have the right to be tested by a free vote?

So, in addition to the opening of the DP, the closed lists also killed its hoped-for revitalization. Both of these sins converge to a third one, the lost opportunity of the opposition to propose to the Albanians a model different from Rama's. It is known that the renaissance autocrat dominates his garrison-turned political formation with an iron fist. He avoids, dismisses or imprisons whomever he wants, with the stroke of a pencil. For a long time, he has put citizens over anonymous prime ministers, whose only quality is to pay lip service to the boss. And for this it has a clear purpose. Yesmans fit his kleptocratic philosophy. In the next elections, in addition to many other messages, the opposition was doomed to convey the opposite. To the humble vassal, she had to oppose figures dear to the people; serviles, the model of the brave who does not fear the judgment of the electorate; Velina ministers, the example of a man who knows how to make a name for himself within his community.

With the closed lists, the PD accepted that the government apparatchiks simply opposed the party apparatchiks. It took away voters' ability to choose, condemning them to a dichotomy between two nearly equally bad models.

The result of this farce is that from the recent changes in the Electoral Code, out of 140 deputies that will be in total in the next parliament, according to the calculations, there will not be more than 30 or at most 40 directly elected by the people, making the opposition practically complicit in closing the lists.

But the question that is asked is: doesn't a seasoned politician like Sali Berisha do these calculations? Didn't he know that battles are won in public and not behind the scenes?

Of course I know. It would be a blunder in the analysis to attribute what happened to the bad luck or miscalculation of the DP leader. There is no doubt that he has done his calculations and has chosen to go to the elections with candidates for deputies, more loyal than popular, with people who obey him, more than the public interest. And from this point of view this is somewhat understandable. With the buying and corrupting power that every segment of this regime has, the piety of the MPs prevails over their quality. And if the opposition thinks it will be a minority again, this way of thinking has a logical basis.

But ama, this is also the big bad of this choice. By deciding for him, Sali Berisha sent the message directly to all the democrats that he is starting a war to lose. That he made the calculations as the main opposition and not as a winner, and this at the high cost of not opening the party, not reviving it and not resonating in the same waves with the public. This is actually the political damage of the closed lists and not the "secret pacts", the kisses with the enemies, the loss of morale or coherence with which Berisha has trained us for a long time. / CNA