By Fitim Zekthi
The Democratic Party (DP) in opposition is marked by extraordinary ambiguities in many respects. All of these ambiguities are the cause of its deep political crisis. One of these ambiguities—perhaps the greatest—is the way it expects the government to be overthrown and for itself to come to power.
The Democratic Party expects the government to fall for reasons completely independent of the opposition and the way it conducts opposition politics. Although the DP declares that it seeks to win through elections, it is clear that it expects to win from the collapse of the Socialist Party.
To be clear from the outset, it must be said that the Socialist Party should have fallen from power long ago due to a thoroughly destructive and corrupt governance and because of the evident dissatisfaction among the people. But this has not happened and does not seem likely to happen soon, because parties do not fall from power simply because of their own failure; they fall when someone better and more capable is ready to take power and overthrow them.
For years, the Democratic Party has been stuck in a crisis of waiting for the government to fall due to its scandals, the release of wiretaps, prosecutorial investigations, or international pressure. The Democratic Party has never seriously considered that it itself must be a party that wins the minds and hearts of the people.
From time to time, for years, the Democratic Party has produced a “major factor” that would quickly bring down Rama. In 2019, a senior DP official said at a meeting with party structures, when asked what they would do (it was the time of continuous DP protests that were yielding no results): “We would wait for some new video to come out” (wiretap videos about Shijak and Dibër had previously been published by the newspaper Bild).
Later, it expected the CDU to force Rama to accept the DP’s conditions for a technical government. At another time, it expected President Trump to come out against Rama because Rama had insulted him on CNN. At another time, the DP expected Rama to fall because a recording about the brother of former minister Fatmir Xhafaj surfaced. At other times, it expected major figures in the U.S., such as former President Bush or former Secretary of State Rice (with whom the DP leader had spoken), to persuade the U.S. to overthrow Rama. At other times, they expected Rama to fall because the DP was being advised by people from the Trump administration who had gone to the White House or appeared in photos with the FBI Director, Kash Patel. At other times, the DP expects to bring down the socialist government because the Trump administration does not like “Sorosists” and has ordered Sorosists to be overthrown everywhere. The list of such expectations is very long and has continued since 1998. The worse the state of the DP, the more pronounced this approach becomes. Those who know the party well, especially from the inside, know this even better because they live it daily. It is a kind of modus vivendi.
These days, following the intervention of U.S. military forces in Venezuela and the arrest of President Nicolás Maduro, the DP has increased expectations that the socialist government will be overthrown through American intervention. The DP has glorified the parallel that, just as it was done to Maduro, it will be done to Rama—hence “Ramaduro.”
It is clear that this is a continuation of the DP’s deep ambiguity—an ambiguity that is strategic, but also imposed by its incapacity (or lack of willingness to look at itself) to be clear.
The American intervention in Venezuela and the arrest of Maduro was an intervention in the “U.S. backyard,” said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, and it was done to take control of Venezuela so that Russia, China, and others would not control it. Bringing Venezuela under control is part of U.S. foreign policy strategy to keep the entire Americas within the U.S. geopolitical sphere of dominance. Albania is not the U.S. backyard. Albania is not under the control of Russia or China.
Venezuela had been under U.S. sanctions for years. Albania not only is not under sanctions, but is an ally of the United States. The government of Albania is an ally of the U.S. government. The government of Venezuela was not recognized as legitimate by the United States. In 2019, President Trump recognized Juan Guaidó as president, not Maduro (and the Rama government immediately recognized Juan Guaidó as president of Venezuela, just as Trump did). President Biden did not recognize Maduro’s (manipulated) victory in 2014 and said the winner was opposition candidate Edmundo González. Neither Trump, nor Biden, nor Obama—no one—has said that the Albanian government was illegitimate and that its prime minister should be Albana Vokshi, Jorida Tabaku, Lulzim Basha, Sali Berisha, Flamur Noka, Edi Paloka, or any other opposition leader.
The Venezuelan government and its president were accused of being the heads of a mafia organization involved in drug trafficking, of committing criminal acts against the United States, and more. The U.S. has never said that the Albanian government and its prime minister are traffickers or leaders of criminal organizations.
The U.S. government has said that Chávez and Maduro together may have killed more than 20,000 people by kidnapping, torturing, or hanging them during protests. These figures were confirmed by the UN in 2019. The U.S. government has never said that the Albanian government has killed people in protests or tortured and murdered 20,000 people after kidnappings. The comparison is excessive.
Certainly, Prime Minister Rama and the socialists are mired in corruption, have built a terrible and destructive system of governance, and should have been driven from power. But this will not happen by waiting for external “factors” or by inventing “factors” that do not exist. The day the opposition understands that this course is completely wrong, looks at itself, and becomes the force that people want to govern the country, Rama will fall. Nothing can stop his fall then. Any parallel with Maduro and Venezuela keeps the opposition stuck in place and helps only Rama.