FLASH
Shkruar nga Andi Bushati
In Albania, we continue to preserve the corpse of democracy only for the sake of facade, while all its vital organs have been rendered lifeless. We saw exactly one of the symptoms today at the assembly meeting in Lushnje...
At the same time that almost all news channels were broadcasting Edi Rama's anti-opposition rally in front of the socialists of Lushnja this Saturday, his former foreign minister, Ditmir Bushati, published on YouTube the latest episode of his podcast, Public Square, where he was chatting with one of the contemporary theorists of democracy, Daniel Ziblatt.
At first glance, nothing could connect these two events, geographically separated by the Atlantic Ocean, which practically speak to different audiences: one addressing his militants, and the other, a Harvard professor, who worries about the methods that authoritarian leaders use to kill the systems that brought them to power through the vote.
But if you followed them on screen, one after the other, you couldn't help but notice an underlying thread that united them. Edi Rama appeared labeling his opponents and critics as dogs barking in the corridors of the EU against his government. Equating himself with Albania, he labeled them as its enemies and warned them that they would never be able to take power by cursing in Brussels and giving interviews on foreign TV.
On the other hand, in the alternative media, the professor and author of the books Ziblatt, sketched the identity of a leader who has the potential to be the gravedigger of democracy. According to him, the attempt to not legitimize opponents and critics, to experience them as enemies, to use against them any means that make the rotation of power impossible are obvious symptoms of this serious disease. And here the connection between the two events begins and becomes tangible. But, for anyone who is curious to delve deeper, Daniel Ziblatt, together with his colleague, Steven Levitsky, wrote a wonderful book a few years ago, now also published in Albanian by the Pema publishing house, entitled "How Democracies Die".
There, among other things, it is shown that the new dictators are not like those of the last century, who used murder or imprisonment to rule. They show that the methods of installation in power are sophisticated. Without specifically mentioning Albania, in this book written during Trump's first presidency, they give us all the levers and instruments to understand what is happening here today. They take the examples of Fujimori in Peru, Orban in Hungary, Putin and Erdogan and so on.
One of the most tangible phenomena, according to them, is the buying off of political opponents with money or luring them with positions, as happened in Peru, when the president's term in power had to be extended beyond the legal deadlines. Then comes the recruitment of large media outlets, turning them into the regime's mouthpieces by granting them access to public money. The rare ones who do not accept this path have the evil ability that Putin bestowed on Boris Berezovsky or Erdogan on the media conglomerate Dogan Yain, which also controlled the Hurriyat newspaper. Another step is the rallying of oligarchs around him, using, as needed, sometimes seduction and sometimes intimidation. Thus, in 2003, the Kremlin dictator ordered the imprisonment of Khokhdorovsky, the owner of Yukos, whose fortune amounted to up to 15 billion USD. "The message to other oligarchs was clear: make money but stay out of politics," the authors write.
They also draw other features of the killers of democracy, which begin with the corruption of VIP showbiz or international figures, which continue with the annihilation of arbitrators, i.e. independent justice, completely wiping out the old system that existed before their coming to power, and going even further with the unilateral change of the rules of the game, tailoring them like custom-made suits for the body of the autocrat.
After listing all these phenomena, Levitsky and Ziblatt reach the conclusion: “By weakening arbiters, buying off or swindling opponents, and revising the rules of the game, elected leaders are able to create decisive and permanent advantages over their rivals. But since these measures are slow and maintain a veil of legality, the deviation towards authoritarianism is not always accompanied by the falling of alarm bells. Citizens in general have difficulty understanding that democracy is being dismantled even though this is happening before their eyes” (page 110 of the Albanian edition).
It is enough to read this conclusion even if you do not delve into all the pages of "How Democracies Die" to understand how sterile the debate that flares up from time to time in this province of ours is. It is enough to direct those who continue to defend the thesis that we live in a democracy to these authors, because here everyone has the right to insult Edi Rama, that here there is no dictator who imprisons rivals, that here the four-term government lasts only as a result of incompetent and corrupt opposition parties.
In fact, the story is quite different: in Albania we continue to preserve only the facade of the corpse of democracy, while all its vital organs have been de-energized. We saw exactly one of the symptoms today at the assembly meeting in Lushnje with the treatment of the oppositionists who are barking to blacken Albania. If you listen to Daniel Ziblatt's interview on Public Square, this is one of the many characteristics of an autocrat.
Lini një Përgjigje