Cynicism and fear in the state administration
Ministers mock their employees
A state governed by the rule of law cannot function by relying only on party colors, nor can it be kept upright with the crutches of their ideologies. In its normal state—potentially aided by rotation and by the arrangements made possible by genuine, rather than merely formal, pluralism—it is natural for the renewal of different levels of the state administration to have a positive effect, especially when it concerns levels that admit interference by political influence and party contingents.
Replacing ministers or deputy ministers cannot be called revenge or party nepotism, just as one cannot demand that this branch of power be depoliticized when its underlying basis must be political. But to wield the sword of replacements, cutting down everyone who, as a specialist or an ordinary employee, has enjoyed precisely this legal status in these institutions, is worse than trying to delegitimize the state itself.
The astonishing things happening in this governing prologue of the Socialist Nano and his other left-wing governing partners go far beyond the very meaning of the word “astonishing.” The almost cynical way in which they are proceeding with what is described, with much fanfare and sentimentality, as the renewal of the administration is no different from the cadre policy of the communist era and looks exactly like the PD’s failed “reform.” Above all, its confinement to the personal pronouncements of one minister or another about how and where he will purge his department has brought into the state administration—which was already sufficiently disoriented—the severe bewilderment caused by fear and insecurity. Among other things, this has brought the functioning of the state apparatus itself to a standstill, virtually to nonexistence.
The government’s failure to officially set out, even as a program, the levels and criteria for purges has led ministry officials, instead of doing their work, to put their faith in card readings or their bosses’ smiles. Meanwhile, adventurers who see power as a weapon of revenge have taken to dismissing, for example, a school director in Pogradec, or demanding the resignation of SHIK chief Arben Karkini. A person who is given a job should at least be told why his resignation is being requested—especially when that person has not belonged to any political party, as is the case with Mr. Karkini.
As we mentioned, normality in a state governed by the rule of law rests above all on its specialists, on the capable people identified within its ranks. They are the ones who breathe life into its functioning, more than the party lackeys of party governments, who ultimately come and go. Even if Nano and his left-wing collaborators lack that much imagination, let them find a model in Western democracies, where the state is truly such—not so much thanks to governments that may change every six months, but thanks to the steadfast legal protection of the administration and its specialists.