Are the new parties anti-opposition?

2025-04-22 12:46:00, Editorial Ermal Mulosmani

When Sali Berisha was expelled from the Parliamentary group of the Democratic Party, a general state of suspense was created in the Albanian Opposition!
How is that possible?!
Berisha's Beniamin, the chosen one, the heir, appeared on Television in a daze and, without shaking his voice, declared that the DP distances itself from Sali Berisha because the alliance with America is above everything!
He had the courage not only to expel Berisha who was ruining his Party's biography but, most strangely, to remain the Chairman of the Party himself!
Personally, I have been a consistent critic of Lulzim Basha's decisions. Among others, his re-nomination for Chairman after the loss of 2021. I thought that the Democratic Party needed a new spirit, a strong man who would unite as many people as possible and give birth to lost hope.
But Sali Berisha thought differently. He was starting to build the DP as a personal fortress and there was no safer candidate than Lulzim Basha.
With a little shadow of doubt here and there.
Basha's courage to remain Chairman of the DP after Berisha's expulsion made me openly align myself with Berisha. Because Basha was a product of Berisha, he had to fall as soon as Berisha was hit. If only to remove his alibi of "traitor". I am not able to make a prophet of how events would unfold after the simultaneous resignation of Basha-Berisha and the announcement of elections for Chairman of the Party, but one thing I am sure of: Basha would not have the hatred he had from the militants. He would wear the clothes of a co-sacrifice and would take away the political card of any Berishite movement in retaliation.
As always, the short-sighted Basha had no idea what would happen in three months. In his mind, America was a force of nature and to be against it was foolish. Many of his supporters at the time thought so too.
But not Berisha and his supporters.
With the card of betrayal and betrayal, Sal Berisha managed to show Albanians that the DP is “Him and a few others”. On the worst political day, at least 300 thousand Albanians would vote for Sali Berisha over a DP without his blessing.
It was March 6, 2022. Berisha was not the coward who had barely received 5600 votes in Tirana 10 months ago, but he was the de facto owner of the majority of the democratic electorate. The dignity trampled on by the most powerful state in the world and its treacherous benefactor, was put in place.
This was the political zenith after falling into the abyss! The best moment to enjoy political retirement and to send messages of unity, tolerance, forgiveness. There is nothing nobler than the forgiveness of the victor.
But this was only an idealistic scenario. The exact opposite happened. Berisha put himself at the head of the DP and chose the Berisha guard as the Party's elite. Loyalty and heroic resistance became the basic criteria for being in the leading group. In June 2022, everything was clear: Sali Berisha had decided to make his Party his own, not the Opposition's.
The opposition political mass that is beyond his control, he does not like, has no reaction whatsoever to the Berisha mass. Berisha has lost his former genius ability to bring everyone closer to his camp, his haters first. After a gigantic effort, after an endless waste of energy, very shortly before the elections, pragmatic deputies also arrived in his Party. They bought their place on the closed lists with public support, sometimes even with public humiliation.
But the vacuum is great.
Berisha is no longer the same as in 2005, he is 20 years older. The opposition outside of him has no hope that Berisha will bring them back to power. The opposition's disintegration has been strong, there is no god who can gather it in a spell with that scattered flour. The water that binds the dough has dried up.
That flour has decided to go to other spells. Young people, perhaps not the best possible but certainly more acceptable than Berisha.
Are these parties Anti-Opposition?
If their voters, if they were not those parties, would vote for the DP, then YES, they are Anti-Opposition.
But, personally, I think that those voters who will vote for, say, Lapaj, Shehaj, Qorri, Basha, Shehi, etc. are not Berisha voters. They would NOT vote for Sali Berisha as Prime Minister for any reason. Most likely, they would boycott these elections, leaving the 2008 binomial in force, Rama-Berisha, the first Prime Minister and the second "the only alternative".
There will never again be such a terrain for the success of a small party. If the LSI received 20 MPs in 2017, it was because Basha's DP in those elections carried out the operation of dividing the DP and took the cost. The winner was the LSI.
The same situation exists today. The 4-year political conflict has greatly weakened the DP, so the premise for success of the small parties is as good as ever. Add to this the departure of the LSI.
So, as a conclusion, the small parties will receive the votes of people who want representation. I really hope that they scratch votes in the PS's mud and break the 2008 dichotomy of "Either with me or with him".
No, man, those times are gone.
The winner of these elections, unfortunately, seems to be Edi Rama again. For the fourth time in a row.
But I really hope that the DP learns the right lesson. To respect those who are different, to get out of tribe, creed and ignorance.
Otherwise, it will increase "Anti-Oppositionism" more and more. Until one day it decreases so much that someone will accuse it of being anti-opposition./Taken from Ermal Mulosmani's social networks