By Dritan Hila
One scene lingered in memory: Berisha walking after the rally in front of the Prime Minister’s Office had ended, heading toward Parliament. At his side stood the new entourage of the Democratic Party. It didn’t take much to understand that, aside from Flamur Noka, even the facial expressions of the others revealed people ready to await Berisha’s physical departure. They comply with whatever he wants only to remain as close as possible to the throne when it becomes vacant.
What we saw was a Berisha more physically exhausted than ever before. It showed in the viral illness he carried and in the slowing of his speech. Admirable for his age, perhaps — but not for the political position he holds. As for ideas, he has remained the man of 1991. Ideas that now produce only replicas of himself — Russian matryoshka dolls, each one smaller than the last. None comes close to figures like Shaban Memia or Pal Dajçi of the past. At best, they resemble pampered children arguing with a traffic policeman. Nor are the followers what they once were. Otherwise, he would have entered — even for five minutes — the building he left in 2013, the one he once boasted he could retake with the “democrats of Mamurras.”
To the great disappointment of those vying for the throne, he has no intention of handing it to any of them, since none enjoys his full trust. He will leave it to his family. Yet even that would only buy time for his heirs, not continuity. Even in dictatorial systems, succession from father to child rarely works — let alone in an open, competitive political market like Albania’s. It would merely prolong the agony of a party where the children try to preserve the creation while the aspirants struggle to seize it — and if they cannot take it, they will tear it apart.
The outcome of this contest is already sealed, and Rama’s greatest asset is Berisha himself. He is an aging goalkeeper; it is hardly Rama’s fault that he scores at will, turning what should be a football match into a basketball scoreline.