When the cure is worse than the disease

2025-05-21 11:14:00, Opinione Nga Feliks Zendeli

Twelve years ago, in March 2013, in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez passed away, and in April of that year, Nicolas Maduro became the 53rd President of Venezuela. A few years later, a friend of mine, as passionate about Latin America as I am, asked a Venezuelan worker at Fiumicino airport what she thought of Maduro. And the worker’s answer, even though I didn’t hear it directly from her, has echoed in my ears throughout this election season: “Maduro is like that case where the cure is worse and more harmful than the disease.”

On the other side of the globe, around that time, Edi Rama won the elections and sent Sali Berisha into opposition. Many thought that this would be the political death of Sali Berisha and that the Doctor would enjoy his retirement among his grandchildren, or between chess and dominoes in the park. 12 years later, in an ugly deja-vu of 2013, the 2025 elections found Albania again between the two options of the distant 2013.

On the one hand, Edi Rama, worn out to the point of being nothing, once a symbol of European hope, today a character diametrically opposed to the one my generation knew when we were children, and who sang with West Side Family and dressed extravagantly. Diametrically opposed to the character who brought a little bit of Europe to that post-communist transition Albania. On the other hand, Saliu, a political relic, someone who has been in politics since before I was born, who continued in politics while I grew up, got educated, started working, and today, one step away from me being a parent, he is still there.

When the cure is worse than the disease

The election result did not surprise anyone, in the sense that even the Democrats themselves knew that the ruling party would continue to be in power. What surprised a large part of the population, and disappointed a slightly smaller part of it, was the final result and more specifically 83 majority deputies against 54 opposition ones. So to speak, a match that was expected to be lost, but lost with dignity, turned into a humiliating defeat. One of those defeats that would lead to the resignation of the coach or at least his dismissal.

The problem in Albania is that there is no one to dismiss this Democratic Party coach, and as things stand, he is not going to resign, and is buying time by finding excuses that do not require much imagination. The elections were stolen, according to him, and many of us can agree that these elections were neither free nor fair, but we also need to look a little at the country we live in.

In Sweden, if someone steals, they are bad, and if someone is robbed, they are poor. In Albania, if someone is robbed, they are stupid, and if they steal, they are clever, to use some of the most slang words on the street. It is easy to imagine how someone who has their elections stolen three or four times might look to an Albanian, and this seems to be the line being followed by journalists closer to the socialist rose in the studios of national television.

When the cure is worse than the disease

The mockery of the Democratic Party that is attempted in the media after this deep defeat is precisely related to this great disease that not only the Democratic Party has, but our society in general. The lack of accountability, of holding ourselves accountable, of resigning when we make a fool of ourselves is a disease that is found everywhere in our society, even in the winning camp, but there it is hidden or camouflaged sometimes by propaganda, sometimes by winning elections like this one, sometimes by bought media. In the losing camp, this disease is in the foreground, clear and visible to everyone. It is like seeing a leper on the street, won't you avoid him?

To be resurrected, you must die once. From this disease, the Democratic Party should have died and been resurrected, fully healed and strong to face power. But what these elections showed was that the medicine keeps the body alive enough to keep the virus that causes the disease alive.

And if this continues, the disease and the medicine will continue to play with each other, and people will no longer find healing in change, but in emigration, as has happened so far.

Someone with less imagination or laziness would look for specific names for both the medicine and the disease, but would the metaphor of the Venezuelan waitress be just as beautiful if we put the names in?