Agim Fagu’s alibi collapses
The independent intellectual becomes a victim of the party
When the Socialist Party’s candidate for Tirana Municipality began his election campaign, it was no coincidence that the fact trumpeted during the May 26 elections—that he was not a member of the SP—was evoked. Perhaps he was wary of the reputation his party had acquired, but perhaps also because, according to Fagu, the promise of civic administration of Tirana’s government became more credible if he presented himself as nonpartisan. Indeed, quite a few people called this an advantage Agim Fagu had over the other candidacies focused on Brojka, Çeka and Alibali, who are currently central figures in the leadership of their respective parties. Needless to say, belonging or not belonging to a party does not mean that a politician is civic-minded, even if he is an amateur like Mr. Fagu. More than anything, the coexistence of a party’s program with the duties of a government official—especially when it is a local post—is made possible by the civic character of a party’s politics and its vision of relations with those elected to positions of power. But it depends no less on the character of the candidate or elected official himself, and his relations with voters, as well as on whether he conducts his competitive relations with rivals during the campaign fairly or not. It seemed that Mr. Fagu, aided by his charisma and not a little by the denigrated ally of the PQ, Neritan Ceka, would know how to become the first rebel against red discipline. But, unfortunately—more so for him than anyone else—the clinking of glasses at the Alibali cocktail party, when the rivals offered hope of a long-awaited campaign, was heard farther than the naivety of the militant intellectual Agim Fagu could have imagined. Perhaps it was ordinary personal jealousy over the “first move,” which until now, through no fault of his own, has continually been made by the Republican Alibali; perhaps it was also alarm at the SP headquarters, where the clinking glasses may have been taken for another Mukje. Whatever the reason, however, the truth is that after Ceka, Fagu also began the boycott. His nonattendance at the meeting proposed by Alibali to determine the arrangements for the televised debate, regardless of the reasons he gave, seems to be nothing other than the end of the alibi of Fagu the independent intellectual. Moreover, the megalomaniacal arguments Fagu and the otherwise ordinary Ceka presented to Alibali represented, more than a forced attempt, the shameful fear of his candidates, who confirm their avoidance of facing their rivals not in person but through letters or phone calls—even at a technical-format roundtable, let alone in a highly public debate made possible by the television screen. Their definitive Chinese-style games confirm their fear of confronting the alternatives with those of the right, especially a debate that, it seems, they had demanded to the point of harassment only as an arbitration or electoral correction.
After Ceka, Fagu also begins the boycott
“One of the glasses at the ‘Alibali’ cocktail party is broken”