In order to understand the political developments in Albania during 2007 one has but to go for a stroll on Tirana’s main boulevard, stop in front of the Prime Minister’s office and look carefully at the Christmas tree there and the New Year’s decorations along the boulevard. If you do that you might notice that while the decorations placed in the boulevard by the Municipality of Tirana are strikingly red, those of the Prime Minister’s Christmas tree are blue. For the sake of those who are not familiar with the symbolism of such colors in Albania’s politics, a reminder is in order: blue is the color of the ruling Democratic Party, while red, as elsewhere, has traditionally been the color of the left, in this case Albania’s opposition. The silent rivalry between these colors in the centre of Tirana is as good an illustration as any of the political situation that has prevailed in Albania for the best part of 2007, where government and opposition have continually tried their best to stake their claims on all aspects of Albania’s life and make each other’s lives difficult to the detriment of all else.
Political life in Albania has traditionally been polarized, but 2007 marked something of a record on that count. Indeed there have been three major moments during this year during which our esteemed politicians have shown that they never hesitate to put short term, narrow party interests above long term national interests.
So at the beginning of the year there were the local elections, which were eventually held on February 18th. That the elections took place without causing a serious crisis was in itself a miracle that owes much to the energetic intervention of former President Alfred Moisiu and the International Community. The different camps of Albania’s politics had for months failed to agree on anything concerning these elections, but what made the situation all the more poignant was not simply the fact that in early 2007 Albanians still had to go through a real emotional drama every time the word elections came up. The worse part of it is that the local elections were to serve as a demonstration to NATO and the EU – whose membership Albania aspires – that Albania’s democracy has indeed matured and that it can hold free and fair elections and once again Albania almost failed. In the end we had to make due with a passing grade, accompanied by an OSCE/ODHIR comment that the elections were a missed opportunity.
Now one might have thought that in light of this first failure fro 2007 Albania’s politicians and especially the government which had promised to make the electoral reform its priority, would have taken a deep breath, reflected, pulled up their sleeves and got to work to address that failure. God forbid! If anything the elections served to heighten the tensions and increase the polarization even further because they were won by the oppositions thus bringing about a clear division of power in Albania with the central government controlled by the right and the local government controlled almost completely by the left.
It must be said that from the moment it gained power in 2005 Albania’s government, led by Prime Minister Berisha had made clear its intentions to gain control over all centers of power in the country and all its independent institutions. In light of the results of the local elections the government’s efforts towards achieving this aim became all the more energetic. The High Court, the Constitutional Court and even the Academy of Sciences fell one after the other to the government – the Academy finally lost the battle only last Wednesday with the passing of a new law in Parliament – but the major battles of this nature of course concerned the two cherries on the cake: the Presidency and the Attorney General.
The battles over these two institutions which ultimately the government won were controversial and accompanied with allegations of manipulations, of being unconstitutional and of vote-buying. In the case of the President the vote of six Socialist Party “defectors” proved decisive – they were paid millions of Euros for their votes the Socialists have repeatedly claimed and barring the occasional lighthearted denial, the government or the President for that matter, have not made any concerted efforts to show they are wrong. In the case of the Attorney General the procedures of the Parliamentary Commission recommending his dismissal were ridiculous and suspicious to say the least, but the new President rubber stamped the recommendation and the government got what it wanted.
Whatever the results these two moments clearly demonstrated the inability and unwillingness to cooperate and reach consensus from both camps of Albania’s political establishment. In fact they risked taking the country to the brink just so as not to give an inch to their adversary, thus demonstrating high levels of political irresponsibility. And they certainly did little to help the country’s chances of receiving an invitation into NATO. But above all these developments demonstrated one of the major and most worrying problems with Albania’s democracy: it lacks those institutions that can control and keep in check the power of the executive and that constitute one of the fundamentals required for the existence of a liberal democracy. Indeed to all effects and purposes, democracy in Albania is still conceived off as the dictatorship of the majority over the opposition.
While the government may have got what it wanted in these Parliamentary and institutional battles in the course of 2007, it has certainly paid a high price. The government came to power in 2005 on a platform build around three pillars: fight against corruption, improvement of the economy and implementation of the Euro – Atlantic integration reforms. Unfortunately the political battles mentioned above have taken up so much of the government’s energy and time that to a large extent it has had to neglect all these election promises.
Thus as far as the reforms go little has been achieved in 2007. There has been some success in financial reforms which were aimed at formalizing the economy and at easing the procedures for starting businesses and the gathering of taxes has improved. There was even talk of a fiscal amnesty for businesses, but now it seems that that will have to wait till 2008. The most important reforms however, those in the judicial and electoral systems have been completely frozen and it seems the government has only itself to blame for this result. By unilaterally gaining control of all institutions and excluding the opposition from all its decisions the government basically shot itself in the foot and made sure that the oppositions would radicalize its stance vis-a-vis the government. Thus the reforms are getting nowhere.
The government has also faced another serious problem in 2007 with the economy. The prolonged and very serious electricity crisis reached its peak in 2007 and its effects are being felt more and more by Albanian businesses and ordinary citizens. The Albanian Central Bank warned in November that businesses have stopped investing and have simply resigned to waiting the crisis out thus putting in doubt the economic growth of Albania for 2008 (for 2007 economic growth reached an estimated 4,5%, down from a predicted 6%, although it must be said that such figures are always open to interpretation in Albania.) What is not in doubt however is the fact that from a political perspective the government has paid a very high price to the electricity crisis – and is probably going to pay an even higher price to the worsening economic situation. During the elections of 2005 Prime Minister Berisha promised electricity 24 hours a day by the end of 2007; the current situation makes a mockery of that promise. But the most serious blow the government has received in 2007 concerns the so-called favorite “battle horse” of the government: its anti corruption pledge. Several cases of involvement of government officials in bribery and corruptive practices, and above all the allegations of massive corruption on the construction of the Durr쳠- Kuk쳠highway as well as a recent survey by Transparency International that showed that most Albanians do not think corruption levels had changed at all have seriously dented the governments image by hitting it where it hurts most: its claim to honesty and integrity.
So in a final analysis although the government has won all Parliamentary battles, strangely enough its position during 2007 has somewhat deteriorated rather than improved. Its credibility has fallen considerably and its ability to reform or manage the economy has been put in doubt also due to the incompetence with which it has handled the electricity crisis during 2007.
The opposition on the other hand seems to be closing 2007 just the way it started it: on a positive note. Loosing all major parliamentary battles to the government – due to the power struggles for the leadership of the Socialist Party and the manipulations of former Prime Minister Fatos Nano who suddenly became Berisha’s new found best friend – the opposition strangely found itself in the enviable positions of having nothing more to lose. This allowed the new Socialist Party leadership under Edi Rama to dedicate all its energies to consolidating its position; something which it seems to have achieved beyond the most optimistic predictions. At the same time although it has nothing more to fight for in Parliament, where the government can pass any laws it feels like by a simple majority the opposition has still the ability to block the government’s reforms if its opinion is not heard. And after all it is upon these reforms that any Albanian government must be judged while the country attempts to join the EU and NATO.
Nevertheless although one has to be overly optimistic to believe in a real improvement of relations between government and opposition in Albania, at the end of 2007 there have been some signs of a thaw, maybe because of the festive atmosphere. There are even rumors that Berisha is trying to reach out to Edi Rama, because apparently it has finally dawned on him that if Albania is to get an invitation for NATO membership at the Bucharest Summit in 2008 there have to be reforms and cooperation between both camps of Albania’s political spectrum. Furthermore now that he basically controls everything even Berisha can afford to be magnanimous. Whatever the motivations for this thaw, if the rumors are indeed true 2008 would undoubtedly be a much more productive and positive year than 2007 has been. The fear though is that this thaw might end up being nothing more than just that and that once Albania’s politicians recover from the holiday hangover they revert to being their usual selves.
