Tangible opportunity for free elections

The chorus of voices expressing concern about the smooth running of the upcoming parliamentary elections gathers momentum. At first sight this concern is more than legitimate. Several institutions required to conduct and guarantee the elections have still not been established, the Electoral Code, identity cards and the electoral reform in general are still to be completed. Meanwhile, the latest political developments steering the Ruling Majority onto collision courses with almost all the players and other social factors do very little towards creating hopes that Albania will be ready for the upcoming elections. If you were to throw-in the concern of the Internationals and Berisha’s forlorn history of his relationship with free and fair elections, you could be easily persuaded that the next round of elections are doomed to failure. However, this is a conviction based on the idea that the fate of elections is determined by institutions and not political dynamics. Subsequently, this is an erroneous conviction.
Never before has Albania had such a great opportunity to have free and fair elections as it has today. The current Ruling Majority has been sucked into a spiral of crises, conflicts and contradictions, from which it will be very hard to extricate itself prior to the 2009 elections. With each passing day its chances of winning these elections diminish. This does not signify that it is a done deal that the right wing will not win the elections, as everything is possible in politics. Nonetheless, one thing is for certain. The current Ruling Majority will not be able to hold on to power through manipulated elections. And this for the simple fact that it lacks the support of key social players and factors within the country, but also the support of the international factor. It was the combination of these two dimensions which permitted the socialists, in office yesterday, to manipulate elections before a Berisha who did not enjoy the support either of key domestic players or of the International Community. And precisely in 2005, when Berisha won the support of the key social players inside the country and the SP lost the support of the International Community, the best parliamentary elections since 1992 took place.
Today, when Berisha does not enjoy either the support of key players inside the country or of the International players, the only way he may be able to win again is by holding free and fair elections. In other words, Berisha may be able to stay in office only with the support of a third player-the Albanian constituents. This is why Berisha and the Democratic Party are today more interested than anyone else in having free and fair elections, because this is their only hope to hang on to power. Naturally, it remains to be seen if the current Ruling Majority really holds the support of the constituency. Again it is certain that even with this support, this Majority would find it very hard to hold on to power following 2009, whereas in the absence of the support of the electorate, the Majority has no hope at all of remaining in office through electoral manipulation.
The Socialist Party, on the other hand, is becoming more and more certain that it already has the upcoming electoral battle in the bag. Gerdec, Faslic, the criticism of the International Community, the economic problems or the different scandals of corruption, even individually would be sufficient to seriously undermine Berisha’s power, while combined they would be lethal. With these issues looming on the horizon, the achievements of the Government pale, successes like the roads, the battle against organized crime, the growing legitimacy in the economy, or membership to NATO even though they will be sung to several times prior to the elections. This seems to have had a soothing effect on the SP so much so that it sometimes even forgets to put up a proper opposition to issues and is satisfied with miming declarations by Western Ambassadors. None the less, in these conditions, the Socialist Party has no reason to think that there will be electoral manipulation. It is convinced that it will be able to win these elections against the DP effortlessly.
So, we have political dynamics that for a variety of reasons, push the two main parties towards free and fair elections. The only political force that may be endangered in the current conditions is the SMI, as a result of possible DP-SP cooperation. Nevertheless, with the current proportional electoral system, the possibilities for manipulation are restricted. As the elections draw nearer and the situation becomes even more polarized, DP-SP collaboration may also become more difficult. Therefore, irrespective of a political situation which on the surface gives you no reason to feel optimistic, Albania does have, today, one of the best chances it ever had to hold free and fair elections tomorrow.