A “New Albania” on the Old Constitution

The boulevard promises a new country and proposes the oldest idea in our politics: that the opponent is not to be answered, but removed.

By Ylli Manjani (Tirana)

The flamingo revolution, balanced as ever on a single leg, has begun to preach a “New Albania.” Not as a political project, nor an economic one, nor a constitutional one, but as a new civic religion, one that sorts Albanians into two classes: those who stand with the boulevard, and those who do not.

The first are the enlightened. They are expected to hold their pose, on one leg, before every absurdity that issues from the revolution’s loudspeakers. The second are “the old ones,” “the traitors,” “the scoundrels,” “the bought,” and whatever further epithet political anger reaches for once it has run out of argument.

Indeed, according to certain prophets of the diaspora, who preach from the comfort of distant continents, some of these “traitors” ought to be jailed. And why stop there: brought back, even, to the death penalty. Yes, the death penalty, for those who do not think the way the boulevard thinks.

At moments like this a thought arrives unbidden: where are you, Enver Hoxha? He understood our political nature better than we cared to admit. Because the idea that an opponent is not to be persuaded but eliminated is no modern invention. It is old merchandise, recycled in revolutionary packaging.

But let us leave the folklore of anger aside and take up the substance of this thing called the “New Albania.”

What does this New Albania actually want?

Does it want a state remade into the servant of its citizens? No. It wants only that the chairs of power change owners. Today’s revolutionaries wish to replace today’s traitors in the offices of the state. That is all.

Does it want a freer, more competitive economy? No. The opposite. It speaks often, and with contempt, of private enterprise, of the market, of individual success, as though Albania’s affliction were that it has too much economic freedom and not far too little. Look at the hatred for enterprise that expresses itself by smashing private investment. And I am not even tallying here the extraordinary damage to tourism they are inflicting along the way.

Does it want citizens who are free and independent of politics? Not at all. It wants believers. People who will repeat the slogans of the day and accept as given every scenario produced by the boulevard’s new film studio.

Does it want a more representative democracy? Not that either. You hear no one calling for a stronger bond between the voter and the elected. You hear no one demanding that the citizen choose the name of his own deputy. On the contrary, you hear grievances that the people will not vote for those who preach the revolution. The problem is not the system. The problem is that the system refuses to produce the result they want.

Does it want constitutional justice, founded on due process and guarantees for everyone? No. It wants prison for its opponents. It wants special laws, special procedures, special courts, and a special morality. Everything special, except liberty.

And so the paradox is enormous.

They speak of a New Albania, but with the oldest ideas available to them. They speak of change, yet propose no fundamental transformation of the state. They do not speak of a new constitution for a European Albania. They do not speak of limiting power, of decentralization, of strengthening individual liberties, of raising the accountability of those who govern.

They speak of wars. Of enemies. Of traitors. Of extraordinary proceedings. Of extraordinary courts. Of a political morality in which the end justifies any means.

At the end of the day, the revolution does not want a new Albania. It wants only a new distribution of the chairs.

And for those chairs it will spare nothing: not the language of hatred, not the branding of the opponent as enemy, and, according to certain more delirious voices, not even the idea of his elimination.

This is not the New Albania.

This is the old Albania that always returns under new names. And every time it returns, it promises us the future while it serves us the past.

Ylli Manjani is an Albanian lawyer and former Minister of Justice (2015–2017). Since his dismissal from government — after which he publicly accused the Rama administration of protecting corruption — he has returned to legal practice and become one of Albania’s most persistent critics of prosecutorial overreach and judicial dysfunction.