The great divide between the Socialist Party (PS) and the Democratic Party (PD) is felt not only in parliamentary debates but in almost every cell of the Albanian state. The exhaustion is such that it manifested clearly in the low turnout of November 9, 2025.
By: Ben Andoni
In the socialist camp, Berisha is viewed as the source of every evil in the country and as the origin of unrestrained corruption; for the democratic camp, anything that is not pro-Berisha or dares to criticize the PD is “communist,” “thief,” or “leftist.” For a large portion of politically uncultivated citizens, the Left is still associated exclusively with communism, while for many socialists the Right continues to evoke the memory of fascist collaborators.
Most denial of the wartime past comes from the Right, while according to the Left, every wrongdoing of these past 35 years is tied to Berisha’s name. Conversely, according to the Right, all betrayals—from Kosovo to border discussions—originate from the Left. If one sits down and presents facts, it becomes extremely difficult to convince their supporters or to create common ground. People are shaken when they discover that construction permits often involve businessmen who maintain excellent relations with both camps, or when they ask themselves how certain opposition MPs have become so wealthy. This is happening even now with a businessman facing justice while his company continues to receive permits. The list is long, especially in the business world.
And so, when the ordinary citizen understands that the Left and the Right do not operate on ideology but on interests and pragmatism, he submits to the paradox. Yet the divide persists exactly as it did during the Second World War: then it was “Us” and “Them”; today, militants on both sides think only in terms of conflict and never in terms of the dialectics of development. It becomes painful when a PD member is invited to take a state position, as if Albania belonged exclusively to one side or the other. The same happens with PS supporters who dare to criticize their own political “family.”
The powerless—meaning, ordinary people—can only close their eyes and sigh in search of a little peace, or at least enough strength to push into tomorrow. The Czech dissident Václav Havel captured this tension profoundly in his essay The Power of the Powerless, writing:
“The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, especially because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a tiny piece of themselves in both.”
This is an essential truth: the world of politics and the world of ordinary people cannot be separated with a knife. In Albania, they are often separated only in appearance, while the people themselves must survive together even where politics seeks to divide them.
The Balkan case is not far from Albania’s, but it is the American example that is shaking the world: the United States is more polarized than ever. Surveys from the Pew Research Center show that “Americans increasingly see the country as more divided than at any time since the Civil War.” The numbers are alarming. In 2022, nearly 72% of Republicans and 63% of Democrats viewed the opposing side as immoral; in 2016, those numbers were 47% and 35%. This is shocking.
Johanna Dunaway—Research Director at the University Institute for Democracy, Journalism, and Citizenship, and professor of political science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs—has studied this phenomenon extensively. She explains that social media and political news are among the primary drivers of polarization. Dunaway also notes that:
“When people are asked to evaluate the opposing party, they often feel considerable hostility based on what they hear from that party’s elites and officials. They tend to assume that members of the opposing party are more extreme than they actually are, a perception that exaggerates the political differences between Democrats and Republicans in the public.”