FLASH NEWS
Mayors' fear of citizens' votes
2025-02-24 11:19:22 / IDE
The May 11 elections are a battle between two forces: those who believe in the power of the citizen and those who fear it. In Albania, the politics of transition have made their choice. Those who kept Albania in a state of chaos for 34 years are afraid of the citizens and their votes. That is why they have built a system where elections are not a competition between ideas, but a bargain between mayors.
In 2008, Sali Berisha and Edi Rama changed the Constitution in the middle of the night. They did not reform the system but dismantled the competition. The lists were closed, the parties were transformed into private clubs and the citizens lost the power to choose their representatives. Since that moment, politics has not been a battle of values, but a battle of servants.
And as if that weren't enough, early elections have become virtually impossible. Governments are no longer held by votes, but by the accounts of mayors. No-confidence motions have become tools of manipulation to ensure that change comes only when it suits Rama and Berisha.
Another mechanism to distort the will of the citizens is the systematic rejection of a national electoral district. Instead of fair representation, we have regional divisions calculated to preserve the power of the same individuals. In this way, the transition policy ensures that no vote of the citizens seriously challenges their agreement.
Electronic voting is another solution that the transition policy unanimously rejects. A process that would eliminate manipulation and put an end to the bargaining over vote counting has been steadfastly rejected. Why? Because they fear a process they cannot control.
The effective closure of the lists in 2020 and 2024 was the final blow to political competition. There is no more open competition within parties. There is no more politics based on ideas. There are only servants waiting their turn on the lists that are placed in the mayors' offices. Deputies are no longer representatives of the citizens – they are representatives of the mayors.
To cover up the lack of real competition, Rama and Berisha have invented propaganda operations like primaries or the “Deputy We Want” platform. But in the end, the same people decide everything. They are the ones who ask questions and the ones who answer. And the citizen remains a spectator in a decision-making that should have been his.
We cannot build a democratic Albania with undemocratic parties. A political system that excludes citizens from decision-making, that concentrates power in the hands of a few individuals, cannot produce democratic institutions. A healthy democracy cannot be based on authoritarian structures. Therefore, the battle is not only for a better electoral system, but for a politics that obeys citizens and not mayors.
Democracy exists only through elections or it does not exist at all. A politician who is afraid of a free vote is not a politician. It is time to choose: to continue living in a captured system, or to seek an Albania where the citizen's vote has real value? The choice is not only the politicians'. It is yours, it is the citizens'.
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