The PD council is to do it. The PS awaits condolences. Fino brings the West’s congratulations How I brought Berisha together with Ramiz Alia. Page 12

If we accept the well-known aphorism that politics is the art of power, there is no doubt that the highest peak of this art is managing the position of opposition. To some extent, the opposition is a kind of power, which not infrequently becomes more influential in its relations with the government than the governing side itself, which legally holds that power. When it comes to the transition from government to opposition and vice versa, the process that brings about these kinds of changes begins, above all, in the mentality of the political forces themselves that carry out this “overturning.” Unfortunately, these few years of pluralist history in Albania have taught us more than 100 such years in the West could have taught us. It is too soon to prejudge the PS’s move from opposition to government, since this is happening to that party for the first time. The same applies to the PD, which is also experiencing its “fall” from government to opposition for the first time. Nevertheless, it is not premature to generalize about the bitter experience left by the way these forces have managed their respective positions so far. It is enough to recall the almost bloody hostility that peaked for years in the political confrontations between the PD and PS, and the catastrophic consequences they brought to Albanian politics, to learn what must not be done. To say that the opposition should be constructive and not be sugar-coated with loathsome hypocrisy is like giving a dry, tedious lecture. The opposition has value even because of its opposition, regardless of when it ought to be so. On the other hand, the fictitious coalition games that the PD applied during its governments, harming more than anyone those it pretended were its allies, left Albania with a long succession of “broad-based coalition governments.” To a certain extent, they did nothing wrong, if one considers that Albanian elections have for some time shown that no one reaches even 70 percent. But if these kinds of coalitions, on the one hand, correct in government the balances lost in the electorate (although it is hard to believe that this is precisely why they are formed), on the other hand they weaken the role of the opposition in parliament to such a degree that even a third is no longer a third, but is reduced to a formal 10 percent. Add to this the voting mechanism so dear to Albanian governments, and the opposition becomes nothing more than an ordinary parliamentary servant. Will it happen like this again? Is it too soon to say? It is too soon to say yes, but it is just as soon to say no. In any case, both the PS, as the largest opposition party, and the PD, in the role of the largest opposition party, have a chance to show that they have learned something from the harsh lesson history has taught them (and will teach) the country because of their fault. If this time they do not make use of this chance, it is an understatement to say that they are once again doing politics. The “best” thing that could be written in the art of politics would be the … [unclear in source]; the conclusion expressed would be the … [unclear in source] for this people, who seem to have been condemned to be politicized by the dictator and the political profession.

Interview with the loan shark Maksute Kadëmi in the courtroom

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