There is a well-known and popular expression in Albanian to express irony and frustration to futility and losing time. The saying goes: “Where were we? Nowhere. What did we do? Nothing.”
The mantra seems to fit very well in the current context of the development of the Albanian political crisis with the opposition camped at a tent in front of the Prime Minister’s Office, the elections threatened to be boycotted and the ending mandate of the President of the Republic set to ignite another round of problematic political relations.
The crisis extends also to the relations between the main and the junior partners in the governing coalition that are continuously throwing jabs at each other despite keeping a cool poker face in public.
Despite expectations to the contrary the removal of four ministers, including the one in charge of interior affairs, from their public office did nothing to quench the thirst of the opposition and little to placate the aggression of the ruling coalition sides.
Meanwhile as a result of the parliamentary boycott, the judicial reform implementation is frozen in time, the chances for any positive developments in the European integration path of the country are vaporizing and a light-headed chaotic sentiment prevails. This is particularly true in the justice sector caught between the end of the official mandate of the incumbent institutions and people and the impossibility of going ahead with the new ones given the gridlock.
Other institutions seem not to be fully aware of the gravity of the situation. The Central Election Commission is trying to substitute the opposition commissioners with independent citizens through inviting them to apply. This is certainly a futile move as the opposition will never allow the elections to go on without its people in the voting and counting booths.
The international community is also stuck, frantically trying to facilitate any forms of dialogue and solution but achieving very little. It seems their capital is also running a bit low in the midst of the European crisis and the arrival of the new American administration. Its ranks are unified in seeking the progress of the implementation of the justice reform but that is not proving very efficient with convincing the opposition.
Civil society and media are hushed bystanders, powerless at best and bought-up at worst, in the face of these political zero-sum calculations and electoral games which mobilize large swaths of people and divide them into polarized camps, transmitting the negative division top down with speed and efficacy.
Meanwhile once again, Albania even without ethnic issues, border and recognition problems and despite lots of international support is finding itself punished by the behavior of the domestic political elite. It is frozen just like the neighboring Macedonia where a harsher political situation with an ethnic underlying is raging for years or like Bosnia, rendered fragile and inefficient by many overlapping statehood issues.
For more than 25 years Albanian politicians have had a problem with dialogue. They consider every agreement and compromise a defeat and certainly do not suffer any pangs for blocking the country’s progress towards the EU.
Where were we? Nowhere.
What did we do? Nothing.
