By Ben Andoni
Are elections regularly abused in our country?! Why is every asset of the ruling party so routinely used to win? Why does the Democratic Party (DP) never accept election results? Why is there no longer any trust in party-appointed vote counters? Why can’t Albanians make good electoral choices?
A string of questions hangs over the public today. Yet the DP has taken the lead and continues its daily accusations. With images, videos, and through its leader Berisha, it leaves no moment unused to showcase what it calls a manipulated process. On the other side, the Socialist Party (SP) not only avoids answering but goes one step further: they are preparing to train their lawmakers! A school for the people who will draft and pass the laws of the Albanian state! But why is the Albanian state so fragile?! How can one trust unproven newcomers and those within the DP who tamper with each other’s votes?! A full 35 years after the fall of socialism, Albania still faces enormous problems on all fronts. And so, an instinctive question arises: Why is normality in democracy so difficult to achieve?!
Perhaps the answer lies, as often, in literature. Svevo once said: “I believe life is much more original than anything I am capable of inventing.” Melville went even further: “Life is stranger than fiction.” Indeed, life in Albania — and not only — is becoming more unbelievable in its bitter reality than anything human imagination could concoct.
And the imagination of politicians often makes you stop and wonder what is happening to our country, with the new laws being imposed by the ruling majority, which now waves the flag of EU integration, and fortunately, the European breeze is opening Albania’s negotiation chapters one by one. Unimaginable to even consider this just a short while ago. Just as exhausting and unprecedented is what the opposition brings forth daily. Is the life politicians see more sophisticated than fiction? It appears so, given that one side persistently crafts a narrative centered around integration (with the countless handicaps of society), while the other focuses on the country’s decay, citing elections, corruption, and criminality… listing them in detailed and precise terms, as if tailor-made. Are we living in reality or in a political fiction? When you realize that the situation has not changed for more than a decade, perhaps we are living in a fiction that we, the wounded or the crippled ones… perceive as reality.