You cannot play games with the votes of the victors
. Yesterday the Socialists concluded their campaign in Tirana, and today the DP will do the same in the capital. Tomorrow, the campaign drums will fall silent, allowing people to cast, on the final day, the vote they have had ready for four years. In fact, this campaign can have had very little effect on Albanians’ choice. Unlike previous campaigns, it was less noisy, had fewer supporters, but involved more tension and incidents. And if promises or spectacles will not add votes, beatings, detentions and numerous incidents will add to the ranks of protest voters. The campaign’s vocabulary was inflamed by harsh language, with words such as provocateur, blood, beatings, manipulator, trash, oppression, etc., dominating over words such as hope, change, peace, alternative… All this made the campaign not beautiful, but dull, with few people and many mercenaries. Those who addressed the people urged them more to vote against their rivals than to embrace their own alternative. Therefore, the campaign changed almost nothing, and the parties will reap what they sowed over the past four years. But while the Socialists will reap not only what they themselves sowed, but also the mistakes that took root during the DP’s rule, the latter will find it difficult to increase the yield of the 6 November referendum. During this campaign, the strong beat of the danger of election manipulation, of intimidation of opponents, and of protecting the votes was heard… The threats and detentions of opposition members that accompanied the entire campaign showed that in Albania the idea of an opponent is still not accepted, but attacked. Nevertheless, this atmosphere of violence was more a reflex of those beings whose existence is tied to serving those in power, regardless of their political color, than an order from above. These people, all of them among the last who, despite putting up the slogans “With us, everyone wins,” are troubled by the DP votes of people who do not want victory through violence. Indeed, they do not want victory through violence. And by swelling the mass protest, they instill fear. “If there is manipulation, I invite all opposition MPs and candidates to go and protest in front of the Presidency,” Gramoz Pashko said at a rally in Tirana. And the possibility of manipulation has taken root in the minds of thousands of people. However, such a thing is unlikely to happen. Manipulation is a grave responsibility for Albanians of any affiliation, especially in Albania today, where the votes of the incoming signatories cannot be played with lightly.
ARMAND SHKULLAKU