Confronting the dictator
Editorial
The so-called elections of May 26 stripped Berisha and his regime of even their last pretence.
In short, the elections were called a farce, Berisha was described as a dictator in newspapers around the world, while Albania was seen as having no democracy and as being seriously threatened by a neodictatorship. All this is evident and implicit in the stance of foreign observers and journalists, in statements by the State Department and the OSCE, and in the silence of Western governments, etc.
“Unfortunately, these elections were marked by irregularities, representing a clear step backward from the parliamentary elections of 1992,” the US State Department statement of June 1 emphasized. In other words, no more and no less, it seems that for more than four years we have gone backward into a void. The democracy loudly proclaimed in 1996 turns out to be nothing more than an illusion.
The declaration of a dictator should make us all sad. It must be experienced as a grave national misfortune, as a catastrophe.
This misfortune belongs to everyone. Even the democrats of Tirana Shehu, who seem to preserve an appearance of optimism with Berisha at the helm. More than optimism, it resembles anxiety, uncertainty and panic. Because history has taught us this much: for the sake of their front, dictators spare no one—not even their closest comrades and friends.
This is no time to make prophecies about things known throughout the world, such as the end of dictatorships and dictators. The task is how to face their inevitable end with as few losses as possible. In this situation, the opposition has a historic responsibility not only to its members and supporters, but to the whole people. This is what explains its measured and extremely careful actions after May 26, so that everything can be resolved by democratic and legal means. The opposition, which now undoubtedly has the majority of the people behind it, has a responsibility to avoid the traps laid by those in power and the dictator to provoke confrontation and bloodshed. This is not fear, but tolerance—a democratic culture that we have acquired through years and years of patience. It is confidence in victory. Victors do not rush. All the more so when they know that time is on their side.