The dilemmas of the "Other" prime minister!

2024-03-11 08:33:00, Opinione Ardi Stefa

The dilemmas of the "Other" prime minister!

Illustrative photo

A very large part of the Albanian electorate and society is looking for a political way out, which none of the current parties and current political leaders offers.

If you look at or read the polls, 43% of respondents want the prime minister to be someone whose name is neither Rama, nor Berisha, nor Basha, nor Meta.

Despite the fact that 57% of the respondents choose to select one of the four leaders of the transition as prime minister, 43% who do not want any of them and probably want the "Other" is much more than each of the leaders separately and the new party, let's call it "None" again dominates against each current party!

Although Rama, despite the scandals of his government, continues to dominate the citizens' preferences to be prime minister in 2025, he still loses against another prime minister, who still has no name.

Albania currently has a government, which is declared all-powerful, but this is only because the Albanian electorate and society has made it clear in all possible ways that it does not trust any of the opposition parties as an alternative.

We have an increased dissatisfaction, which strangely does not appear in the streets with protests, nor with votes in the elections, but with a mass departure from Albania. Which proves that the Albanian society has not yet found an effective political representation. All these prove that we are at a key point, at a turning point, at the starting point of a change, which still needs to be seen from which process it will take shape.

The old, i.e. a whole way of organizing the debate and political confrontation, as it was formed in the last three decades, with even older roots, is actually slowing down. Not that he doesn't understand, but that he sees society with hostility!

The new one has not yet been seen and the first pains of a difficult birth appear on the horizon.

But the most frightening thing is the growth of political apathy, which due to the lack of hope and faith will make a very large part of the electorate think that they can no longer affect the change with their vote and will simply choose not to vote.

The decline in voter turnout in the 2023 local elections, despite aggressive campaigns, is clearly not a snapshot, but a picture of the future.

At the same time, this disappointment and mistrust reflected in this unprecedented popularity of... "None of the current political leaders" has only the negative dimension of losing all faith in political participation.

It also has the positive dimension of demands and needs behind this mistrust. Demands and needs for social protection, for fair development, for public goods and services, for security.

Claims, i.e. for a state that can meet the basic needs of citizens, that does not commercialize everything, that can design an economic policy, that development has to do with the whole society and not only with the oligarchs, that can plan and afford future challenges.

Anyone who reads the polls carefully can see clearly what society wants: To fight expensiveness. To have blind Justice against everyone, regardless of the power or money they may have. Education and health should not fall apart. To fight corruption. There should be no arbitrariness and arrogance of power.

To feel safe, and not just with more police to fight crime, because safety is also not being unemployed, safety is being able to pay rent and bills, safety is living in dignity with a job honest; not paying cash to be cured or to settle legal matters, which are fair.

Security is having your property and not being robbed in broad daylight.

These are the needs of the citizens. And these should determine the political program of the "Other" that society is looking for today.

And the citizens may no longer believe in the current political identities, or in the empty declarations of the dead end of the street about the reconstruction of the opposition front, but the stigma of the policies they seek is clear.

And because nature as well as politics abhors a vacuum, these needs will not remain politically orphaned forever.

On the contrary, they form the ground for new forms that will be able to cope with society's anxiety.

And the people who can represent it and who, of course, are not the "political leaders" of today./ CNA