THE CHANGE THAT CAN BRING VICTORY

2026-05-02 15:21:00, Opinione Erion Dasho

Weekend status, 2.05.2026

The May 23, 2026 Democratic Party elections are not just a date on the calendar. Personally, I see this event as one of the last opportunities for what has been expected for years in Albanian politics to begin to take shape, the anti-Rinlindja and anti-Borat movement.

The movement that will offer Albanians hope and a reason to vote en masse in the 2027 local elections and the 2029 parliamentary elections.

It wouldn't be the first time something similar has happened.

The Democratic Party has offered leadership, an alternative, and a governing model when communism and, later, the kleptocratic and corrupt regime of Fatos Nano needed to be overthrown. Both times, it has come to power with massive votes from Albanians.

Unfortunately, this victory was not repeated in 2021, 2023, or 2025, even though all three times it faced a corrupt, illegitimate, and extremely worn-out regime.

What should have been the response after the elections of May 11, 2025?

I am not an oracle, but I can say one thing for sure. A result like that of May 11, where the Renaissance not only did not lose ground, but even deepened its advantage, requires RADICAL CHANGE!

***

Let me state it from the beginning.

I don't belong to those who equate change with the Doctor's departure!

Every rational mind understands that the majority of the votes remaining for the DP are loyal to Sali Berisha, and this is normal considering the history of the Democratic Party, especially its re-establishment.

In the chaos that followed the unexpected loss of 2021 and the conspiracy with the non-grata declaration, the Doctor managed to reassemble the shattered party and repackage it as a political, oppositional, and electoral factor.

But that's it! Without being able to bring him to power, as the two elections under his leadership showed, the local ones of 2023 and the parliamentary ones of 2025.

Today's DP offers less hope than the one of the December 2021 assembly and the events that followed it. In its current state, it cannot become the pivot of victory against the evil that has the name Rilindja and Borat!

What needs to be changed then?

One possibility would be a change in mindset and approach to dissent, debate, and factions.

Although I have no particular preference for characters like Ervin Salianji and Evi Kokalari, they have already announced the challenge and intention to compete for the leadership of the DP. Both deserve to be given a chance, because their candidacy does not come out of nowhere. Salianji has proven that he is an electoral factor, while Kokalari has an undeniable contribution to the re-establishment process.

Both stand out from the vast majority of the current leadership of the Democratic Party. Among this leadership I also have friends or former friends, but, let me put it bluntly, their political careers have reached the end.

They are kept in line by the crutches provided by the Doctor himself.

They are no longer political values, but anti-values ??that translate into electoral costs for the DP and the opposition.

In the last elections, they isolated the DP from people like Ilir Alimehmeti, Fisnik Qosja, and many other democrats who won the primaries.

It is enough to follow social media to understand that public support for the Doctor's close team in the party has today fallen into minus.

With this leadership team, losing in any election is simply a matter of time.

***

To return to the initial topic.

What would be a realistic and positive development of the Democratic Party's situation today?

Without a doubt, the competition between Sali Berisha, Ervin Salianji, Evi Kokalari and Alesia Balliu.

I would have preferred candidates like Ilir Alimehmeti, Besart Xhaferri, Belind Këlliçi, Jorida Tabaku, Nikola Kedhi, Ted Kopliku or Andi Mustafaraj over them, but these can now be considered the qualitative part of the current leadership around the Doctor and the team that the latter should propose to Albanians as a governing alternative in the upcoming elections.

In the May 23 race, a plebiscite victory for the Doctor is certainly expected, but the other candidates have the potential to absorb a percentage of the Democrat votes. Exactly what is needed to convey the image and message of change.

These votes should then be translated into percentages of factions with the right to proportional representation in the presidency, assembly, and electoral lists.

I believe that this would be the right message for the Democrats and the Albanian electorate, a message that would also be tested in the 2027 local elections.

***

The candidacies presented as an alternative to the Doctor for the May 23 elections in the Democratic Party are not perfect, but they are the breathing space that the DP needs more than ever.

Just as he did in September 2021, when he decided to come out of political retirement and begin the re-establishment, today the Doctor has the historic responsibility to start a new era in the Democratic Party; that of alternatives, dissent, and factions.

This change cannot be initiated by the election commissions, the apparatchiks, and the puppeteers that the Doctor has around him in today's DP.

Only statesmen can do this, and Sali Berisha is one of them.

Let's throw down the gauntlet of the race to Salijanj, Kokalari, and Balli. Each of them who will attract more than 5% of the democrats' votes, let them have the right to create their own faction in the party and let them work alongside Sali Berisha for victories in 2027 and 2029.

The victories that await Albanians!/ CNA