A government of hope, or of disappointment?
A page is stolen from Nano’s report
Yesterday, fifteen minutes late, parliamentary speaker Gjinushi took to the Parliament podium, followed by Prime Minister Nano, to present the government program.
After the fifteen-minute delay incident, another minor incident occurred, which Nano tried to brush off with humor. A page had been torn out of the report. The Socialists, who were seated there, began whispering that this was an incident caused by the opposition. The opposition, they said, had managed to steal a page from the report. In any case, the page was found and Nano continued reading.
Nano’s government program was not lacking in window dressing: You would have thought he was campaigning, and his speech was full of electoral phrases. According to Nano, this government would rely not on party criteria for building the state administration, but on meritocracy. The prime minister was so enamored of this expression that he had put it almost on every page of the report. Is it true that the Socialists will carry out an administrative reform according to European standards, based solely on professional merit? Rather than saying it is impossible, one can say it is difficult. The expression is suspect because the government is not technical, but partisan. Thus it cannot stray from the path on which it was built: the party path. This view is reinforced by the fact that among the guests were former members of former members of the Central Committee and former people from Tirana. First and foremost were those who had stood by Nano. After all, they too contributed to the Socialists’ rise to power.
But what does the façade of Nano 3’s government program promise? The program aims to revive Albania through three phases: Emergency, Hope and Consolidation. Nano tried to convey a message of hope, to get the country back on its feet. In the first phase, he promised to establish order on national roads and in Albania’s cities. In the second phase, through medium-term objectives, the government promises calm and a new order, while seeking to achieve its two main objectives: the complete elimination of gangs and the complete disarmament of the population. The final phase of the Nano government promises order and calm according to European standards.
Without going into the program’s details, the prime minister did not fully convince those listening that his government would restore hope among Albanians. The most important points were eliminating the gangs and disarming the civilian population. The proposed measures seemed more like promises than practical measures. For example, the government promises to mobilize against the gangs, establish calm, and then carry out administrative reform in the law-enforcement agencies. We believe the answer is no. In many cities, especially those with high crime rates, the law-enforcement forces themselves and their leaders are implicated in crimes or have themselves become criminalized. With law-enforcement forces implicated in crimes, calm, order and national security cannot be established.
The government’s economic program is also questionable. Having been criticized during the election campaign over the return of people’s money, the government offered no guarantees to reassure citizens who had lost their money, savings, homes and pensions in the pyramid firms. The glimmer of hope kindled during the election campaign for the return of the money, the glimmer of hope kindled during the election campaign for a chance at getting the money back, could not be generated by the government itself or give the opposition hope of being able to fight the government.
For the Nano government to remain a government of hope rather than disappointment, it must convey messages of revival to Albanians; that message could become the government’s own “burden.”