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Sali Berisha, "Article Basha" and the next attempt to hold the DP hostage
2026-04-23 14:40:08 / IDE
When a political leader, on the eve of elections within his party, does not deal with the program, the vision or the persuasion of the members, but focuses exclusively on eliminating opponents, this is not a sign of strength — it is a symptom of a deep weakness. Sali Berisha, in recent months, before the “re-election” has coldly followed a single strategy: the self-exclusion of those who do not obey him, the direct exclusion of others, the organization of protests without real political purpose — simply to numb the democrats and to keep them from any courage to tell the bitter truth about him — and, as a result of all this, the move towards an unopposed race. A pure architecture of fear and not of victory.
However, Berisha’s re-election will not be as smooth as it may seem on the surface. There is a legal obstacle, which — despite being consciously ignored — does not disappear just because it is not mentioned. In the DP statute, drafted, with complete irony, by Berisha himself, there is a provision (Article 46 of the statute) commonly known as the “Basha article”, but which today returns to its author like a boomerang. The wording is clear and unequivocal: whoever loses the elections automatically leaves office and cannot run again. No appeal procedure is foreseen, no room for interpretation, no possibility of escape. It is a verdict without appeal.
And it is precisely here that history takes an ironic turn, one of those that only time knows how to reserve for those who believe that they are above the rules. Berisha himself, in 2013, had solemnly declared: “mon départ est sans retour”. My departure is without return. At the time it was a rhetorical phrase, because the departure depended on his will and he knew this. Today, with the statute that he himself drafted, that phrase has become a legal norm. Returning or not returning is no longer a matter of will but a matter of implementing the rules. Even when the rules are ignored, they continue to exist and produce consequences: legal, political and moral.
The first act has already been set in motion. Candidate Alesia Balliu has filed a formal request, simple and without unnecessary technical complications: the implementation of the statute. Specifically, the determination of the fact that Berisha is not the leader of the DP at least since September 4, 2025 — the day when the CEC officially certified the result of the parliamentary elections, where Berisha resulted in a loser like never before in his 35-year political career.
It is important to emphasize the nature of this legal initiative. Unlike the former Berisha in the war with Basha — who, whenever he felt threatened, immediately turned to the court, without asking about the internal institutions of the party, putting into motion his entire legal apparatus and the famous “Zhukri” as an instrument of pressure — Balliu is meticulously following the internal statutory routes. Without noise, without spectacle, without seeking an audience. With a commendable persistence that Berisha himself would envy. He simply demands the implementation of the rules as they are written. In itself, regardless of the result, this act constitutes a first and symbolically powerful lesson against Berisha: the rules and institutions, even in the party, are respected, before turning to the court.
However, the internal reality of the DP does not leave much room for naive optimism. Balliu’s request has most likely fallen on deaf ears. It was probably thrown in the bin from day one, as a document that was better left untouched. Berisha's deputy, Flamur Noka, can hardly be imagined as the guardian of the statute. And this is not surprising: in a party where institutions exist formally, and function as decor, where rules are written to be broken without elegance, the expectation of voluntary implementation is, at best, a form of naivety. The party leadership, for its part, does not seem to be taking on the weight of the responsibility that belongs to it. It is composed of two groups. The first represents the opportunists who joined Berisha late, who bitterly laugh at the suffering of the democrats and at these grotesque situations, waiting for the party to fall into their hands after Berisha's natural departure. The second group are the unwavering loyalists of the first hour, who have transformed over the years — consciously or not — into political eunuchs. They may feel that something is wrong, they may even know it, but they have neither the intellectual capacity nor the courage to tell their leader the ridiculous situation in which their captain and their ship with tattered flags are sinking.
Let's be clear. The predetermined elections will take place. And Berisha will be re-elected for the umpteenth time at the head of that increasingly wrinkled party. Most likely in open violation of the statute, without a real opponent, with the entire internal apparatus mobilized in order to achieve the desired result, which will be somewhere around 90% of the turnout. Berisha will once again promise the final battle to overthrow Rama's "regime" — a promise repeated every year for the last four years, with the same intensity and with the same result: zero. This time with a turban.
Of course, perhaps one of the cadres around him — the type of person who “knows” the statute and the laws, considering recognition as a personal privilege — could whisper to Berisha a way to circumvent the formal obstacle of Balli and its supporters. The solution is well-known: a vote of the National Council, without asking the membership, to change the statute and get rid of the “Basha article”. This mechanism itself shows the deep level of centralization and institutional deformation. But even if implemented, it will do nothing but deepen the absurdity and the grotesque — by changing the rules to cover up the violation of the rules.
Despite everything, there is a dimension that should not be lost sight of. Anyone who dared to run and was excluded, self-excluded or declared undesirable has already won his battle with Berisha — not the electoral battle, but the symbolic and political one, which carries much greater weight.
They have highlighted something that many knew, few articulated, and no one documented so clearly through public behavior: this “political strongman,” this “relentless warrior,” this man of “legendary battles,” who has kept Albania in tension at historical moments, this politician who has dominated political life for half a century — in essence, it turns out to be simply a petty coward. All his strength, all the legend built over decades, stems from a single act, repeated over and over again: holding on to a chair at the head of the DP at all costs, constantly feeding on the aspirations, hopes, and contributions of thousands of sincere democrats, who have paid with the cost of their political lives for the trust wrongly given. A greater punishment, in his political old age, could hardly be imagined.
And yet, even in this situation, the judicial path remains open and deserves to be pursued — even if only as a battle of ideas and principles, beyond the practical outcome.
Because the value of this path goes beyond the technical issue of who will be the next president or whether the elections will be held according to statutory rules. The real battle — the one with historical and political weight — is this: will Berisha take the DP with him to his political grave, or will the party manage to survive beyond him?
The judicial path is not the only solution. But it is, perhaps, one of the last opportunities to answer this question, before history itself provides the answer, with its usual brutality.
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