"Vox populi, vox Dei!" or the time to call to mind

2026-06-21 12:54:00, Opinione Ardi Stefa

"Vox populi, vox Dei," Albanian saying, "The voice of the people is the voice of God."

It's an old expression, powerful and dangerous at the same time. Beautiful when used to defend freedom. Scary when used to justify stupidity.

Today in Albania we are increasingly hearing the voice of the people in defense of freedom, democracy, transparency and accountability. This feeling is wonderful.

But I disagree with the claim that it is enough for a crowd to say something for it to become true. It is enough for a square to chant a slogan and it becomes justice. It is enough for the anger to be great and the argument is considered unnecessary.

However, history is full of cases where the people have been wrong. Crowds have applauded tyrants. They have burned books. They have condemned the innocent. They have elected adventurers and overthrown reasonable men. If the voice of the people were always the voice of God, then humanity would never have known political catastrophe.

In fact, the "vox populi" becomes even more dangerous when it is used by politicians to justify their follies. Whenever a leader has no arguments, he hides behind the people and his voters. Whenever he seeks to evade responsibility, he proclaims himself the exclusive interpreter of the popular will. Thus, criticism of him is presented as an attack on the people themselves.

This is why democracy is not only about majority rule, but also about limiting power. Politicians are not given a mandate to do whatever they want in the name of the vote they get. On the contrary, institutions exist precisely to restrain them. Because a politician who says "The people or my party elected me, therefore I am right!" is as dangerous as a crowd that says: "We are many, therefore we are right." Numbers do not replace reason, and party votes do not replace the law.

Democracy, too, is not the worship of the crowd, but the limitation of its power through law, institutions, and reason.

Just as democracy is not the exclusive preserve of political leaders, but a limitation on their arrogance and the cementing of their power.

Yes, the voice of citizens must be heard.

But the moment we begin to believe that the majority is always right, we have entered the territory where thought ceases and fanaticism begins.

So perhaps it's time to "correct" the famous Latin expression.

Not "Vox populi, vox Dei!" But: "Vox populi, vox populi."

The voice of the people is the voice of the people. Important, necessary, but we should not necessarily hide behind it. And even less a "blank check" for politicians who, whenever it is convenient, hide their ambitions, failures and arbitrariness behind the name of the people.

So the time has come to call to mind, before we give divine attributes to the crowd or power.