What did we vote for?

2025-07-02 09:33:00, Opinione Ardi Stefa

A political scientist friend of mine, who lives and works outside Albania, participated in the May 11 elections. He voted in Albania, not in the diaspora. He spent almost three months between Tirana, Vlora, Durrës, and Elbasan.

In all the conversations we had together, he emphasized to me the fact that Albanians should vote for; he emphasized to me that, unlike what was heard on television, portals or cafes, Albanians on May 11th were not voting to overthrow the government, nor to establish the opposition. Because on May 12th they would have the same government and the same opposition.

Albanian citizens, on May 11, were invited to elect their representatives in the Albanian Parliament with the hope that they would elect worthy and capable people to represent them.

Over the last three years, the Albanian Parliament has often become a theater of free (as a prize, not as a philosophical or political notion) and small-scale political opposition to the major interests of Albanians.

Over the last three years; the Albanian Parliament turned into a theater of the majority, which, amidst the smoke of flares, overturned chairs, and the deafening noise of pipe bombs, approved laws in 5 or 7 minutes, such as the state budget, or other important laws.

And it would be fortunate if those who are elected decide to truly serve Albania and the electorate, to exercise and respect the essence of the responsibilities for which they were elected.

However, the Albanian Parliament is not the assembly of a student association where various lazy people build and rebuild the planet and decide about the climate. Nor is it a non-profit association where the rights of animals or some plants that are in danger of disappearing are discussed.

The Assembly can have a crucial role in an Albania that is trying to regain momentum and plan its role and priorities. To find itself in a turbulent and unstable era.

Especially now that the result is known, the opposition must redefine its priorities in terms of political figures, attitudes, positioning, and rhetoric. After all, catharsis and self-transcendence are not bad things; on the contrary, they are the oil that lubricates the gears of society's forward movement.

Society has never progressed when everyone agrees on everything. It progresses in diversity, healthy debate, and tolerance, when the general interest prevails over personal and partisan interest, where the self is transcended.

This is what has happened all over the world. All peoples, all social classes, all ideologies, all factions make up and shape it together, one political scene, one parliament. This should happen in September in Albania with the new Parliament.

Not only because every election is also a beginning. But also because Albania itself and we Albanians need it.

And, since we have decided to "live" together, it would be an irony of history to "die" apart./ CNA