Why I Have Decided to Stop Being Silent

Every cell in our body has a predetermined mandate and lives until its time to leave. However, there are some cells that refuse that command and continue to live beyond the deadline. They no longer serve their bodies at all, but they continue to grow for the sake of growth, daily imbuing the territory of healthy cells. Uncontrolled growth causes a disease that weakens the body until it dies. As you can imagine, the disease is called Cancer.

Not only the human body but also the body of society has its own cancer, called dictatorship. Just as cancerous cells do not grow overnight, Enver Hoxha did not become dictator in one day. He slowly climbed, and often caught sight of me, until one morning Albanians got light in a nightmare, where the Albanian body slowly began to die. Many of us closed our eyes, but they had to keep closed for nearly five decades.

History does not have to repeat itself identically, but some diseases have common symptoms that should not be neglected. This is because dictators are not empowered in emptiness, but they are fed by the silence, tolerance, and neglect of society. Bring these that for thirty years our society has shown to Eddie Rama, a phenomenon that is developing in the stages.

First stage: Mayor Rama

In 2000, Albania had attended a tradition of democratic countries, conducting debates among candidates in the election campaign. That is what a young man, running for the municipality of Tirana, who participated in the debate, did but gave one of the worst political performances of his life.

Instead of preparing better for future debates, however, this young man named Edi Rama decided that he would no longer argue with his opponents. So in 2003, after winning a mandate as mayor, he refused the debate by installing a new practice where the campaign is based more on propaganda and manipulation than on confrontation and information. I kept silent at the time, what did I do for whom Rama argued?

Second stage: Mayor Rama

In the early 2000 ' s, the Socialist Party was running, groupings and various currents that co-existed within the party. In 2005 Nano resigned and Rama became the party's leader, in a baffling pair of elections, where a candidate loses at dinner and wins in the morning (some say he won the “a palace platform, a” vote).

With the party's choice at the helm, President Rama began by eliminating the right of speech. By his arrival the Socialist Party was once like a polyphorenic amendment, and at times a group of round weddings each received on their own. Rama received this freedom through the Public Communication Office, forcing them to speak to the media only after they received his approval.

When he finished with the right of speech, he passed on to the right of choice. He had entered the SP because this party had the precedent since the party lost the mayor's election and resigned. But in 2009, after losing the election, Rama, instead of resigning, organised a lighthouse race that competed in front of a winning candidate who (they say) voted for Rama.

And to cover up this job seven years later, Rama changed the party statute by eliminating the right of choice altogether. I was silent at the time because what kind of work was I doing inside the SP?

Third stage: Prime Minister Rama

During the first eight-year-old ruling SP changed four prime ministers and formed about ten cabinets. So powerful were party MPs that Prime Minister Nano dared not elect the government without their approval.

However, in 2008, along with its similar, Rama managed to change the constitution, making the prime minister's dismissal from Parliament impossible. No wonder Prime Minister Rama has ruled entirely by the highest decision-making body in the Republic in these years.parliamentary Albania.

The election reform that followed these constitutional changes killed two birds with one stone -- gave President Rama full control over his party's deputies, and eliminated the competing parties within the left.

As long as you think that in the 2009 legislature in Albania's Parliament, 12 political parties were represented, and there were two independent deputies who were elected directly by the people. Pluralism, which made co-operation between different actors necessary and coalition governance wide, with MPs being elected directly by the people's votes.

But today, for the first time in decades, Prime Minister Rama is ruling without any need or said in his own language: has all the pans for himself.. I kept silent at that time because what difference does anyone make when they are all the same?

Last stage: Rama autocrat

Many states that have a constitution similar to ours suffer the problem of separation between the executive power and the legislature, but few would be considered democratic if one party chairman controlled every power in the country.

For example, Albania cannot be democracy when Rama is not only controlling the government and parliament, but has also extended control in the sectors of justice power, independent institutions and the media.

When Rama got into politics, his party only fully controlled T The VSH and the Voice of the People, while most of the media were either completely opposition or congested opposition.

But there is much evidence today that leaves little to suspect that he controls, to shame, national televisions, and most of what remains of the audiovisi media or written press.

As no one before, Rama governs today in an environment where the media take the chronics with tapes prepared by his propaganda office, and where media owners fire journalists just because they tend to do their job.

When Rama entered politics, he found a corrupt judiciary but did not fear the government. For example, in 2006, the Constitutional Court gave him the right to the municipality he was leading in the case of overpassing to the Black Bird by overturning the prime minister's claims at the time.

But today we are in terms where we don't even have the Constitutional Court, where the attorney general is elected only with his votes, and where courts are filled with judges who are afraid of controlling the government, instead of fearing the government being afraid of court control.

Before you misunderstand me, at any moment I have forgotten Nano's corruption, Meta's abuses, or Berisha's authoritarianism. The three of them, together with their checks, are as dangerous and corrupt as Rama. But Edi Rama is the first prime minister since the beginning of pluralism, drawing closer to the autocratic. As he climbs, no doubt on the stairs his ancestors gave him.

But if you still want proof of this, let me remind you that in the 2003 local elections when the SP was in its second term in power, just like now, it got only 34% of the vote. And today, through schemes that we've heard with our ears, but also as a result of not putting the opposition in the election, it is heading towards the control of 100% of the country's municipalities. But today I'm not going to shut up, because if I don't start talking today, I may never have this opportunity again...

So today, when Rama's phenomenon is in the final stage of its development, we should wake up and realize that if we don't start reacting now, tomorrow will be late. Today, we have nothing but to start the final battle against trying to install a new dictatorship. And for this job, we don't have to learn from contemporary cures for cancer.

Unlike the chemists of the past, or the opposition Molotov, today the cancer heals by empowering the immune system. And this immune system in society, there is nothing but empowering healthy social cells through a legal architecture that enables people to choose their representatives directly in the municipalities and in the parliament, but also dismiss them in the middle of the mandate.

There is nothing but the possibility of the people deciding on their property directly through local or national referendums, legal initiatives, parliamentary petitions and national assemblies. But above all that the constitution expresses the will of the people, and is changed only by the people, not by two autocrats on a long April night.

But this immune system must also have a legal architecture that enables the final division between the executive and the legislature, by establishing a president elected by the people, and by authority to exercise constitutional control.

It's going to be this huge immune system, but not without direct involvement of the public in politics, because if responsible people don't deal with politics, mutated oligarchs, butchers and sabble Batak will continue to decide for our children, for our homes, for our health, even for our lives.

Therefore, there is no doubt that building a strong immune system can kill Rama's dictatorial dream, and ensure that the carcinogenic seed of dictatorship will never sprout in Albania again. But we have to unite in this battle, because we all know democracy doesn't really die in one day, but neither does the dictatorship collapse overnight...

*Mare from Lapsy.al