By Lutfi Dervishi
The major mistake being made is insisting on the idea that protests can be quelled by increasing the number of police officers and their bonuses, tightening the law on assemblies, and raising fines for protesters.
Të lidhura
None found
The police, RENEA and the army can clear the square, but they cannot disperse discontent. The law can be tightened, but it risks becoming a caricature as soon as attempts are made to enforce it.
What is happening in Albania cannot be explained through neo-Marxist, anti-fascist, anti-American, anti-European or anti-Semitic labels. In the absence of evidence, these labels do not help explain the protest. They serve to delegitimize it and avoid discussion of its causes.
This is no longer a protest against the government; it is a revolt against the way power operates, against a system with an authoritarian pyramid at the head of a dictatorial police apparatus.
Discontent has accumulated over many years. The protest may have a trigger, but its roots are much deeper; the crisis is not one of public order but, above all, a profound political crisis.
The fundamental problem with the political system is the weakening of institutions to the point of dysfunction, as well as the weakening of representation and the mechanisms for controlling power. (Are the new MPs worthy representatives of the students who have taken to the streets in protest?)
Elections are held regularly, but how, when faith in fair competition has vanished into parts unknown! OSCE/ODIHR reports have identified serious problems, including the use of state resources, a lack of transparency in party financing and inequality in the contest, not to mention organized crime, its connections and its role. It is not enough for citizens to have the opportunity to vote; they must also believe that their vote can bring change.
The idea is taking root here that every four years we go to renew the certificate of power, rather than compete in a fair contest.
Parties are increasingly functioning as calcified structures built around their leaders, while parliamentary candidates depend on their moods rather than on an open contest within the party and directly with voters.
This also helps explain the protesters’ dissatisfaction with the traditional opposition.
Parliament, which should oversee the government, acts as its blind notary. Question sessions, interpellations, investigative committees and requests for information should not depend on the will of the majority. They are instruments of democratic oversight, but when even a majority MP receives no response from the administration, what is left for an opposition MP to do, and what should the citizen think?
We have a system in which power derives from the vote, but power and political responsibility ultimately rest with one person.
It has become clear to everyone that one of the main reasons for the mass demonstrations in the streets is the staggering rise in the cost of living.
Albania has economic growth, investment and tourism, but as a man from Shkodër would say, “The figures may be doing well, but my children can’t eat them.”
Citizens do not measure development by the number of tourists, the height of towers or the beauty of 3D projects, but by housing costs, wages, pensions, the quality of schools and the ability to receive healthcare.
Preferential fiscal policies, tailor-made laws and the concentration of economic benefits in a few hands fuel the perception that the rules are not the same for everyone.
Beyond poverty and inequality, there is an even more serious problem: the belief that work, ability and honesty are not enough to get ahead. (I remember the words of a female student who was berating the police officers, but which I cannot write here.)
The lack of meritocracy, corruption, the emigration of young people, the lack of prospects for the future and declining trust in institutions have created a cocktail of anger ready to explode at any time.
For many citizens, the problem is not only that they are not heard, but that they no longer believe they can resolve anything through existing institutions or the Loyal Presence. That is why they take to the streets.
The government is treating the crisis primarily as a public-order problem. “People have taken to the streets and we must send them home.” But public order and political legitimacy are two different matters.
The government is not the same as the state.
The state has an obligation to protect life, property and security. Violence against police officers or citizens cannot be justified, but police brutality cannot be justified by the fact that 100 or 200 protesters were violent either. Responsibility is individual, is it not?
Tightening legislation and using force may reduce the numbers at protests, or even bring them down to zero, but “calm” is not a solution to the crisis. On the contrary, it risks radicalizing some protesters, widening the gap between citizens and institutions, and turning the police into a party to the conflict and an easy target of political confrontation.
The more the government relies on the police to resolve a political crisis, the more it deepens that crisis and indirectly acknowledges that political instruments are not working.
Like everything on this earth, this crisis too will pass. The question is whether the right steps are being taken.
Crises end when the spiral of violence is stopped and all violations are investigated swiftly and professionally, regardless of who committed or ordered them. Abandoning the use of the law as an instrument of intimidation creates the conditions for open and sincere dialogue involving political actors, representatives of the protesters and students, and credible civil society actors.
Dialogue cannot be a table where the government determines the “rules of the game”—who participates, what the agenda is and what the conclusions will be.
A third party accepted by the participants could help build trust.
In every country, elections are an instrument for emerging from a crisis, but here they have been tried as invitations to deepen the crisis.
Without a political agreement to redesign the electoral code and hold credible elections by addressing the problems identified and summarized in one line in the latest OSCE–ODIHR report, we risk changing the players while continuing to play the same “game.” Perhaps with the same result.
A government with a limited mandate, under which neither side would block the processes, and with clearly defined tasks, could be among the options for negotiation. This should not be considered a magical solution, but rather a mechanism for creating conditions of trust, if the parties have the political will and agree.
We need elections that resolve the crisis, not elections that produce another disputed result.
Elections are an instrument, but to avoid returning to this crisis, something more than a regular electoral process is needed: a profound reform of the political system.
Perhaps we are late for a serious constitutional and institutional debate.
Changing the electoral system to make way for the representation of an unrepresented generation, genuinely opening the lists, democratizing the parties, introducing competitive procedures for selecting candidates, and strengthening parliamentary oversight are tested instruments.
In Hungary, a law was passed stipulating that the prime minister may not serve more than two terms; ideas must be discussed on how to limit the concentration of power in one person’s hands.
A broad process of change can be considered, but only with consensus, transparency and inclusiveness, not as yet another agreement between leaders, like the one in 2008.
The objective is clear: an MP should have greater responsibility toward the voter than toward the party leader, parliament should oversee the government, and institutions should not depend on the will of one person.
One element often missing from public discussion is how to emerge from the crisis with as little cost and tension as possible.
A prime minister who sees every compromise as capitulation and every protest as an attempt to forcibly remove him from power risks closing off the space for a solution himself.
A change of power must come through a democratic process, not through the imposition of force.
A lasting solution should not guarantee one side’s victory, but confidence that the game was won fairly.
The country does not have a problem with peaceful demonstrations or violent protests. The country has a problem with trust in the system of representation, the rules of the game and the way power is exercised.
The question today is not how the protest can be brought to an end, but what must change (peacefully) so that people no longer see the street and violence as the only way to be heard.
The government can choose between two paths: investing in the police to control anger, or investing in politics to address its causes. Wisdom, foresight and the interests of the country and its people support the second—address the causes through concrete action.
