It has become customary among the two “big shots” of Albanian politics to dress themselves in the megalomaniac robes of advisers by doing more insulting than observing. What stands out most in this campaign is the brutal way in which the PD and PS seek to secure their respective powers, moving from one paradox to another, and saying that “one made more ‘jokes’ than the other.” With their feet tangled in the traditional rally-mania of their campaigns, the big shots, despite using the entire propaganda, demagogic and administrative arsenal at their disposal to promote the idea that they can extend their reach everywhere, have so far been forced by fear of failure in demonstrating their strength to confine themselves to comfortable areas regarded as traditional strongholds of their respective electorates. Although the comparison may seem excessive to some, the truth is that the “giants” have shrunk so much in their posturing that they believe the image reflected in the electoral mirror of routine rallies, which magnifies them and deceives the party faithful. But what is even stranger is that both sides, badly haunted by the idea of the “enemy,” look for one even in the government they themselves currently control. In the news reports of recent days, although carefully edited by Radio Television specialists, attentive viewers could not fail to notice that Mr Arbnori in Shkodër, where his party holds local power, and Comrade Mejdani in Kukës, where the socialists, as the Mejdani supporters themselves say, are again laying claim to the municipality they held for four years, said what local government ought to do, without saying whether they had done it during the time when they should have. In fact, Mr Arbnori’s characterization of local government, reducing its role solely to that of a garbage collector—even though this duty is indeed part of its many responsibilities—becomes all too easy to understand when it is made its sole function. He said nothing about the legislative body and its autonomy; again, nothing about economic powers; again, nothing about the corruption that drove local government far from its voters. Worse still, both of them speak as though they were only now entering the contest for power, a contest masked by the incompetence and corruption of those in power. “Local government should do …,” and so on and so forth: this is the theme of … in the Middle Ages, in Arbnori and Mejdani, while people have the right to exercise … rather than … do, among those who no longer … the governments have set things right by insisting on everything for themselves. The PD and PS speak as though they were butting heads for the first time in the race for power, which they themselves have mauled with their incompetence and corruption.

Ufficiale del Ministero degli Interni: «Bonifica del territorio»! Un’insolita operazione della polizia della capitale ha dato al suo centro un aspetto ancora più insolito.

“Masked men” terrorize 25