By Albatros Rexhaj
Last night on Sokol Balla’s Real Story I said the Socialist Party is in the middle of a civil war. Today Elisa Spiropali claimed authorship.
The war did not start yesterday, nor with the railings. It started last autumn, when in Brussels and Berlin it was said, in corridors and over dinners, that Edi Rama was finished and that Elisa now had to be backed. And since I know the circumstances from both sides of the fence, I also know this: those words were not said about Elisa by Europeans.
Elisa had said it herself, about herself, and the Europeans had simply repeated it. Just like that. As if Albanians were a herd and some foreigners were picking their shepherd. We have seen this film. In 1914 they brought us Prince Wied, with a crown and protocol, and after six months he left by ship. Albania did not accept then someone chosen by others. There is no reason for it to accept one today.
But I want to be precise, because last night I was not. When I said “civil war,” I was being generous. A civil war implies two sides. It implies that Elisa represents something close to half the party. Does she?
How many branches does she have behind her? How many structures? How many mayors, how many deputies, how many youth organizations? Or behind her are a few former officials, each with an investigation file over his head, who were cut off from the party the day the office door closed? And among them are people who have paid, and promised to pay, so that their files would be closed?
If so, there is no civil war. There is a group of people protecting themselves, and they call their self-protection democracy. And I said it last night, and I repeat it today: the masked group that emerged from the ranks of the PS does not have only former officials behind it. It also has organized crime groups, which have their own reasons for wanting a different government.
Behind them come former officials of the Albanian government who bought access at Berlin’s China Club and from there speak, without authorization, on behalf of the German government. A dinner in Behrenstrasse is not a mandate. But these people dress Berlin up in participation in a plot for an undemocratic change of power in a NATO member state. This is a serious accusation against Germany, not against Rama. And we will pursue it to the end, all the way to the chancellor’s office, because Berlin has the right to know who speaks in its name around Tirana, and with what ticket they entered.
Elisa’s letter raises many questions. Before asking them, she should take a breath. Tirana burned. Citizens and police were injured. Shop windows were smashed, businesses looted, cars set on fire, stones thrown onto the boulevard. In her letter, violence appears as the natural consequence of “power that does not listen.” No. Violence is the choice of the one who exercises it. Whoever demands change through an open letter cannot defend those who demand it with Molotov cocktails. The two do not go together.
With her government experience, Elisa may also be able to answer something else. Why did the OSCE and the UN office in Tirana rush to issue a statement offering mediation? Mediation between whom and whom? Albania is a NATO member. It is a candidate for the EU and is closing chapters. It has a parliament, courts, and elections. Two organizations in which Russia has significant influence offer mediation as if we were Bosnia in 1995. Who invited them? Who said there are two sides in conflict here that need a third party? If Elisa knows, let her say it. If she does not know, let her ask herself why the mediation offer came just before her letter.
Now, a final word on Edi Rama.
According to the stories coming from the exponents of this war within the PS, Rama is a dictator. He has endless gangs behind him. He commands organized crime. If that is so, then Edi Rama is truly a great deceiver. Because a dictator with gangs behind him does not keep them in the garage when the capital is burning. He sends them out.
Vuçiç sent his out, before the eyes of the world, and nobody was surprised. Rama did not send his out. Others sent theirs out, wearing masks. And a dictator with gangs does not keep in the party someone like Elisa, who remembers democracy only after she has lost her position.
Either Rama is a dictator without gangs and without dictatorship, or those who say so are lying. There is no third option.
Thank you, Elisa, for helping us ask the question.