By Plator Nesturi
The first voting in the new parliamentary term and we see the first political disorientation. And not for an important issue or anything. Not because of a bill or reform, for which the opposition has other options and considers the majority’s incentives as violation. It merely had to do with the Assembly speaker, the election of whom was not unexpected and there was no need for any ploys to secure the necessary votes. The Socialist Party has the necessary numbers and it didn’t need anyone’s help and or an alliance to appoint Gramoz Ruçi as Assembly speaker.
Nonetheless, Ruçi was voted by 80 MPs, as opposed to 74 seats that the Socialist Party has. By making a simple calculation, we can deduce that the new list of Basha’s MPs includes people who want Ruçi to preside parliament’s proceedings. There’s nothing wrong with this up until this point. But if we recall the fact that the only political action of the Democratic Party in the months after the elections was to define the former head of the Socialist Parliamentary group as part of the old nomenclature and as a result, unacceptable for this post, makes everything hilarious. Hilarious as an incentive, because Ruçi’s election in that post would change nothing in the good or bad relations between the opposition and the new majority. Hilarious because even this battle with ghosts from the past is futile when you have leaks among your ranks. Regardless of who has offered those votes, an entire parliamentary group becomes ridiculous and this makes the opposition’s action less serious.
Today, parliament will discuss Rama’s government new program and it will vote it. It’s no surprise that the program will be voted along with the new ministers. The majority is calm with the numbers that it has. What’s more, the opposition now is comprised of two political forces who don’t even know yet if they will be in opposition with each other.
While we see that the DP is still busy with the debate about the leakage of votes on something which is not that important, it’s hard to believe that we will have a functional opposition. The DP still seems to be disorientated and it is not known how long this situation will continue. Also, in its new position as part of the minority, the Socialist Movement for Integration will need to update the mechanism of opposition making, which it hasn’t used for more than 8 years.
So far, during the hot summer months after the elections, it was Prime Minister Rama who has both defended the results of his team for the first term in office and also criticized it about the things that have gone wrong. However, in the absence of incentives, accusations or reflections by the opposition, the balances have been disrupted. Rama is appearing as both the head of the majority and the head of the opposition. Nobody, in either side, can compete with him. Neither on the role of the opposition representative, nor in his own role, because the opposition is nowhere to be seen yet. And the “digital citizen” is not enough to fill this big gap.
The opposition is at large. Chances are that it will not even be found when the new governing program is voted, because the opposition is not only defined by its nays. Time is needed before we start to see its contours. Time is needed before the children and the youngsters, who are within its ranks, grow up. So far, they’re merely MPs who were selected by the chairman of the party, but they cannot be considered as horses or nights in a battle. Let us wish them good luck in their work…
Note: The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Albanian Free Press’ editorial policy
