When "co-governance" is hidden behind "morality"

2025-08-01 11:06:00, Opinione Ardi Stefa

When "co-governance" is hidden behind "morality"

Illustrative photo

Personally, I am in favor of cooperation between political forces for the good of Albania. I am also in favor of co-government between different political forces!

Because in theory, co-governance is one of the most democratic forms of sharing responsibility and power. It is a formula that promises broader representation, a greater voice for citizens, and equality in decision-making.

But co-governance is one of the most misused words in Albanian politics.

What sounds like a call for cooperation, inclusion, and justice, sweet language to the weary ears of a disenfranchised and long-unrepresented segment of the electorate, is increasingly used not as a means of sharing responsibility or as moral cover for dubious deals.

When co-government appears as an alibi for bargaining, it is no longer a political act, it is an act of manipulation.

Especially when it is actually an alliance for political survival.

And in such cases, morality is the first to be destroyed.

This happens when parties that until yesterday accused each other of corruption, links to crime or serious failures, today sit at the same table and call this “political maturity”. And to justify the turn, the banner of morality is often raised: “let us unite for the good of the country”, “to save democracy”, “to preserve stability”. Beautiful but empty sentences, when in essence they do not represent principles, but bargaining.

Co-governance is healthy when it is built on shared values, honesty, and long-term vision.

Because co-government is not and should not be a shield for hypocrisy.

It is not even a springboard for personal careers that lack legitimacy.

When done without ethical criteria, it turns into complicity, not cooperation.

But when one side hides behind morality to wash away the sins of the other, we are not dealing with co-government, but with complicity.

And when someone serves evil in the name of a supposed good, that good disappears, and only the mask remains.

In Albania, invitations for openness, values, meritocracy, and co-governance have been made primarily to silence the opposition, to break the moral resistance of any individual who still holds onto some principle. They have been used to buy time, to whitewash images, to legitimize illegal decisions with new signatures.

This is what kills public trust more than any economic or social crisis: when morality is used as makeup, not as a guide.

And when various positions have been accepted by opposition individuals, they have been lynched, at a time when responsibility should be sought elsewhere: in the "incompetent opposition leaders," who only see personal interest, who are deliberately incapable of holding themselves accountable, of taking a breath, of bringing the opposition to power.

Co-governance, in itself, is not bad. But when it hides behind morality to camouflage personal interests, then it becomes more dangerous than political solitude, because it tries to convince the public that it is being done for its own good, while it only serves the survival of power; and from co-governance for the common good, it is co-compromise to cover up evil!

It is not important how many parties are in government, but what morality guides that government.

Because a government with many chairs, but no backbone, is not co-government; it is co-compromise with evil; it may produce temporary stability, but not justice!

It can give power for a term, but not trust! And then, there is no more direction, there is only wrong direction./ CNA