Former Interior Minister Sandër Lleshaj, in an interview with the newspaper “Panorama,” supports citizens’ right to protest and considers the wave of protests an important democratic development for the country.
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Lleshaj also sharply criticizes the political class and the way representation has been structured in Albania.
The former Socialist minister sends a direct message to Edi Rama, stressing that resignation is not a drama, but a decision made when “the time is ripe.”
Lleshaj raises serious questions about the functioning of institutions, the role of political parties, and the relationship between citizens and those in power.
He calls for a radical change to the system, demanding a new law on political parties. Lleshaj is critical of the current model of governance and calls for a review of how Albanian democracy functions.
Regarding the “Balluku” case, Sandër Lleshaj sends a strong message to SPAK that justice should not depend on anyone’s will…
Mr. Lleshaj, how do you assess the wave of civic protests calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama? What awakened Albanians this time?
The protests have brought a new and necessary dynamic to the life of the country, after a relatively long period of political and social lethargy. Their broad international resonance is an expression of their magnitude. Unlike the democratic world, Albania in recent years has paradoxically witnessed parliamentary parties protesting in the streets while playing an entirely peripheral role in Parliament. In fact, Parliament is the forum of political parties, while the streets belong to citizens who do not feel represented in Parliament. This time, we are experiencing a normal development. Citizens are in the streets, where it now appears there is no place for politicians who are paid with citizens’ taxes. As for the politicians themselves, no one knows where they are anymore.
Could the failure to address the protesters’ demands escalate the situation?
Politicians should take careful note even of a protest by a single citizen. Politics must demonstrate respect toward the citizens who pay for it. And respect means listening without comment. The attempt to delegitimize those who protest by asking for reasons or motives beyond the fact that they are citizens is anachronistic. Ultimately, the government remains responsible for protecting its citizens’ right to protest. It is also responsible for protecting the protests from foreign influence or infiltration, about which there have been many unsubstantiated insinuations. Even regarding the protests and tragic events of 1997, the government of the time irresponsibly washed its hands of the matter, pointing the finger at foreign services—as if it were not responsible for protecting the country from them. In the current situation, there is only one course of action: the protests must be heard, understood, and treated with empathy.
Do you think Edi Rama should resign to make way for a political solution?
If I had communication with the Prime Minister and he had been willing to receive advice, perhaps I would have given it to him, but time has also brought an end to that communication. Therefore, under these circumstances, I believe that all that is left for me is the ethical and professional silence connected to my former political relationship with the Prime Minister. Personally, I think resignation is not a drama, but a kind of blessing that a person experiences when the time is ripe. I experienced this blessing myself in 2020, when I resigned as Interior Minister because one of the thousands of police officers committed a crime at midnight while on patrol duty. And every day that has passed since then has only strengthened my conviction that the decision was also a blessing.
As a former Interior Minister, how do you view the way the state is currently managing the large civic protests, in which violence against protesters has also occurred?
Once, during an interview, I was asked what the police would do if the people attacked polling stations on election day. My answer was that the police would do nothing in such a situation, because it is not their mission to prevent the people from expressing their will, whatever that will may be. That is my answer today as well. The police’s duty is to ensure that protests proceed properly. At the same time, they have a duty to confront crime and violations of the law at all times, always based on the principles of proportionality and restraint.
I formulated this principle as the 110 principle. This means that the police react one step later in time to violent actions, one level lower in terms of force than the force they face, and that the balance of police engagement should be zero victims. This strategy is that simple: 110. The police belong to the citizens before they belong to the state. I regret that I did not have time to implement an initiative I once had to change its name from the “State Police” to the “Albanian Police.” A police force that has historically belonged only to the state should increasingly take the form of a citizens’ police force.
Protesters are calling for a change to the system, the departure of the old political class, and a new Albania that should be led by young people…
The protests have highlighted a fundamental problem in Albania: the total exhaustion of the political class inherited from the Party of Labour of Albania in the form of the successor parties it created during the twilight of its existence. In reality, this is the first and last problem Albania must address today. But instead of focusing on this issue, the protest has expanded in terms of topics and proposals to the point of cacophony. Before the law on strategic investments, protected areas, elections, and many other issues like these, Albania needs to change the political system that has produced all the anomalies of these decades.
The protest appears to be pursuing many goals simultaneously, and everyone knows what someone who tries to hit two birds with one stone achieves. Under the legislation created over three decades, Albania is de jure and de facto a hostage of political parties—or, even worse, a hostage of party leaders who have the legal right to personally determine the lists of candidates for whom the Albanian people are supposed to vote in vain. This has produced the sad reality of the Albanian Parliament being filled with people appointed by the leaders of parliamentary parties. This situation is more than alarming. Unless Parliament is protected as the temple of democracy, nothing else can be protected—not even lagoons as the “temple” of flamingos, natural resources, or public property.
If the protest could bring any genuine public benefit, it would be by helping impose a new law on political parties, with the aim of removing their exclusive right to representation and establishing legal standards for the democratic election of their leaders and forums, and, above all, of all the candidates these parties put forward in elections, as in the Europe we aspire to join. As long as Albanian citizens do not exercise their constitutional right to be elected and to elect without being dependent on the will of political party leaders, democracy in Albania will remain merely a propaganda term. As for the “power of young people,” I would say that this is a cliché which, as attractive as it sounds, is equally dangerous. It is like the cliché about incorruptible women.
It is indisputable that young people have the right and duty to participate and assume responsibility for building the future of the country, which is their future. But no form of age discrimination can be legitimized in this matter. The issue here is not the removal of older people to make way for the young. In state and private affairs, people are engaged in accordance with their capacities and abilities. The knowledge and experience of the “old” cannot be excluded simply to make way for the energy of the “young.” These qualities must be combined in pursuit of the best outcome. Behind slogans promoting the “young” and “women,” there is always the trap of exploiting them, in cases when the very lack of qualifications and experience becomes the weak point from which failure and corruption begin.
Do we still not understand that our experiments in this field have embarrassed us at international tables, when, on more than a few occasions, young officials who were impeccably groomed in appearance but lacked any knowledge or experience have made an utterly dismal impression in front of international officials seasoned in the affairs of state? Have we still not understood that the many failures of these decades also bear the mark of many young people who were promoted solely because they were young and failed precisely for that reason? Do we truly not know that Albania has an exceptionally large number of young people in Parliament and in all state offices compared with other countries, yet this has not helped? Young people must be given every space and opportunity to demonstrate their talent and energy. But catapulting them into positions that normally belong to those with experience is harmful to everyone. Perhaps it would be useful to understand the meaning of the English term “senior,” which is used to define many high-ranking positions in the economy, administration, and politics.
Protesters are also calling for the creation of a technical government with a one-year mandate. How do you assess this proposal?
This is one of the things that further deepens the cacophony of the protest I mentioned above. A technical government would only be a waste of time and the best way to meaninglessly bring the protest itself to an end. The country needs the radical political change I discussed earlier: a new law on political parties. Without this, a technical government would merely create the conditions for party leaders to catapult the next group of kamikazes into the new Parliament, creating another copy of the one we have. Albania does not need another political cycle with different actors, but a fundamental change to the system that creates its Parliament.
Another demand by the protesters concerns the removal of Belinda Balluku’s immunity and her arrest. Why, in your view, is the justice system not taking action against the former deputy prime minister, and is the claim that the Socialist Party is not turning her in convincing?
Justice should not depend on anyone’s will to turn someone in or be turned in. As long as surrender or self-surrender are prerequisites for justice to function, it appears that justice will be absent.
Do you think SPAK is applying the same standard to all senior officials? What message would the investigation of every official for whom there is sufficient evidence or indication send?
I believe public expectations of SPAK have taken the form of enormous naivety and illusion. SPAK’s duty is to bring people who violate the law before justice, but we can never claim or expect this structure to solve the fundamental problems related to the lack of democratic legitimacy of bodies higher than SPAK itself. SPAK will never be able to lend legitimacy or credibility to a discredited Parliament, from which, at best, the country’s most ridiculous anecdotes and stories emerge, and, at worst, laws that destroy the public interest. Without a dignified Parliament elected by Albanians and not by party leaders, not one SPAK, but even a thousand others, would be created, and things would continue along this course. /Panorama Newspaper
