The PS Alternative —
DESTRUCTION OF DEMOCRATIC POWER
In its unrestrained efforts to take state power back into its hands, the self-styled Socialist Party of Albania and its leaders, MPs, press organs, etc. have a strategy and a tactic that have now been exposed quite clearly in all their outlines.
On their pseudo-socialist passport they now seek to put photographs of the Democratic Party and democracy in general. Thus they aim to smuggle in refurbished Enverist pseudo-socialism, to present a burdened conscience as an outraged victim, as a tender being waiting to be reborn together with democracy! After unjustly seeking to wash all their half-century of filth with democracy’s clean water, they also aim to pin it on the one whose photograph they have put in their passport. With this passport they seek to make democracy pass for dictatorship and dictatorship for democracy; in democracy’s name they seek to suffocate it in their own filthy waters and restore dictatorship. To achieve their objectives, Nano’s pseudo-socialists, Alias, Enver’s loyalists and nostalgics, are proving quite aggressive and, at the same time, organized in their anti-democratic and, why not, anti-national attacks. The pillars they seek to bring down are parliament, the government and the president. With a minority in parliament, the heirs [of the dictatorship] until the next lawful elections... Power is a diamond mine, a dollar mine for them. They know its taste, its aftertaste, its privileges, the opportunities it opens up directly for them in their relations with an entire world outside the homeland, in the fanatical, selfish service of personal interest. It is simply from this position that they curse parliament and excommunicate Mr. Meksi’s democratic government, despite having solemnly and publicly promised it their support in the most washed-out hypocrisy. They hold this government responsible for everything the community in Albania has done and not done, while the former communist cabinets are not even mentioned in passing for their deeds, for their crimes, right up to the last day they held power, until democracy toppled them from their usurped seats. In this vein, these days Comrade Zanaj, in an article devoted to—or ostensibly about—the President of the Republic, went beyond that subject by labeling Mr. Meksi’s government “incompetent.” Logic is clear in this case too. In addition to a parliament of bandits that does not deserve to exist, there must also not be an incompetent government, its offspring. No one can be a carrier of incompetence—not the Albanian people, not Albania. Our people know this very well because they have painfully experienced it under all the postwar communist governments, which placed incompetence and mediocrity on a pedestal. Knowledge [?] The Byzantine cunning of the PS leaders, who seek to sow confusion and bewilderment by identifying Mr. Meksi’s democratic government with those of the communist dictatorship, is quite clear. In any case, the most unprincipled and monstrous attacks, the most unbelievable and vulgar slanders, have been directed by the socialists, their press and their leaders against the President of the Republic, Mr. Berisha. The President of Albania has certainly not been crowned on the throne of the gods, nor has he descended from Olympus as a mythological being. He too makes mistakes and should be criticized for them, and suggestions should be made to him, etc. But Nano’s and Ramiz’s social-communists do not approach the matter from this position. That is not what pains them. The President makes them allergic because of the self-awareness with which he has devoted himself to democracy’s victory and consolidation in Albania, and because through his work he has earned nationwide respect at home and a reputation on the world political stage, something communist leaders have never had and which honors us as a nation. In short, they see the president as their sworn enemy, as the main obstacle to fulfilling their old and new ambitions. They cannot forgive President Berisha for the role he played in toppling them from the pyramid of power, or for preventing their allies in the PD from extending a hand to help them climb back up that pyramid. For all these reasons, it seems they have decided not even formally to recognize Mr. Berisha any longer as President of Albania. They openly defy him, describing him—as “Zëri i popullit” did—as a “so-called president.” And can a “so-called president” be at the head of the Albanian state?! Beware, gentlemen! Your perverse mentality shows that you are preparing to do perverse things. You say you have been renewed, but the facts show that you are just as old and rusty as ever, still thinking of subjugating the people and the country; you are convicted provocateurs, heirs of Enver, consummate demagogues from his Nazi-communist school. Beware, gentlemen! You need only be reminded: you had the law, and you made it yourselves. Now, if you do not want to know, there is a democratic parliament, a democratic government and a democratic president, established through proper and lawful means. You do not want to recognize the law; you despise and insult it. All you seek is to overthrow democracy. But neither the law nor democracy can remain indifferent to you. The will of the people is the will of God! This has been determined forever, gentlemen!
of the dictatorship cannot make it the law, nor can they ignore it, no matter how noisy, ambitious and insignificant they may be. They are accustomed to acting in a formal parliament whose sole function was to raise hands to approve the anti-judgments dictated by a gang of political and common mafiosi who ruled this country and this people with an iron fist. The shadow of the past completely dominates them and prevents them from adapting to the fact that today’s parliament is a creation of democracy, the first parliament in which Albanian democracy is making its voice heard powerfully in defense of the law and, consequently, of the state and its citizens. Confused by the unforeseeable upheaval they have suffered, and by being present in a parliament where there is no command from above to unify and turn everything into robots, they see parliamentary democracy—which by its very nature tolerates even some momentary, unjustified excess—as a bad, unacceptable dream, as anarchy and banditry. The recent statements of former MP Dritëro Agolli are reflections of this mentality and, of course, of the subject that nurtured it. According to him, our parliament is not European but dominated by a gang. It is regrettable to hear such assessments from a respected writer and poet. But writers and poets, by their very nature, are forgiven many things. Nevertheless, for a moment one is struck by the thought that the author of “Zëri i popullit” is passionate about a poem devoted to a parliament. After this, what will the Director and the PS parliamentary group do, what will the Albanian people do? Will they submit to a parliament of bandits, or to a gang that has seized control of it? By every logic, such a parliament should be dissolved by whom, on what grounds or with what authority? After the results in the local elections, the pseudo-socialists will make a circle and seek a new parliament according to their own menu and tradition. Having become accustomed to communist utopia, they continue to be utopians. But utopianism is regressive and dangerous. Albania has experience of it and understands it better than any other country. There is no more time for failed experiments that have been rejected worldwide.