Since the consensual constitutional changes of 2008, accompanied by the change in the electoral system, the debate on whether Albania has become a better or worse country is not ending. Although most of the rebel political voices or those of the free media and civil society insist on the deterioration of the political and economic environment, the major traditional parties, the Socialist Party and the Democratic Party, continue to insist on the opposite.

The premise of the changes at that time, which were voted for by the two major parties for greater political stability and a more elite parliament than that of the majoritarian system, in fact produced two completely different results. Stability degraded year after year into a semi-autocracy, while the parliament and consequently the government into progressive criminalization and corruption. And it could not have happened otherwise when the changes were the reason for more control of the party leaders over the political system, while constitutional democracy pushes, on the contrary, towards the control of the institutions over the leaders.

Secondly, the closed lists did not produce “elites”, but “serviles par excellence”, who could also be individuals with criminal pasts. As an illustration, we may be the only country in Europe that has adopted a special law decriminalizing politics and constitutional institutions and public administration.

But this history is not worth history in itself, but rather to explain the current situation of Albania "made in 2008". And to be as truthful as possible, it must be said that, again for illustration, we are the only country where the problem is not only the government, but the entire political establishment. Because the behavior of the leaders of the government and the opposition is the same. A semi-autocracy that over time has transformed into the despotism of two people, who are precisely the authors, implementers and beneficiaries of the changes of 2008.

Specifically, the two biggest debates that have been dominating the public space for at least a year are the Balluku issue in the SP and the Berisha issue in the DP. The Balluku issue, as Edi Rama's behavior towards the accusations of justice, has brought a new standard of political lying, now open and without gloves. "The law is me", "the state is me", "the truth is me". Author: Edi Rama! If for Ahmetaj, Beqaj or Veliaj Rama was subject to the demands and measures requested by SPAK for lifting immunity or dismissal from state positions, in the case of Balluk, only the Prime Minister's blocking veto matters. SPAK, GJKKO, the Constitutional Court or the 500-year-old Western parliamentary doctrine no longer have any value. What matters is what the despot has decided. And whoever seeks the opposite within the SP must remain silent because he "flies" down the paths of political unemployment, his career is ruined and so on. As for the response to the internationals, the position is more ambiguous, but still with the same result. Veto! Or worse yet, the internationals turn into "saboteurs" under the pretext of sovereignty, or their positions are relativized through phrases that even Rama himself does not understand after pronouncing them. The most eloquent example is the prime minister's podcast on Sunday that seems to have stolen from Švejk in the title "who knows what I say"!

What happens in the DP? The same thing "word by word"! "Article Basha" that forced Berisha himself and anyone else after him to resign in case of losing the general elections or two consecutive local and general elections, has now been forgotten and is interpreted according to Berisha's whim. Others within the DP are silent or applaud. This situation has turned the "pulpit" of 2021 into a funny memory, while the behavior of the opposition into a puppet similar to the international food prices that Ramiz Alia trumpeted during the times of the talonas in the early 80s.

Both Rama and Berisha have taken the courage to openly behave like satraps since the results of the May 11 elections. The day when, with each other's help and the voluntary submission of their armies of militants and patronageists, they forcibly mortgaged the monopoly of governance and the other that of the opposition. And although in the November 9 by-elections they received a clear boycott message, where the participation of 11% in Vlora stands out, it seems that both continue the same behavior because until the next local elections in 2027 they think they will reinvent themselves to maintain the same positions. And they are most likely right! Because with the same people, the same small failed parties and the same internationals armed with the rhetoric of diplomatic pressure as their only weapon, there is no way to change the situation.

Since political definitions have been exhausted, the situation we find ourselves in is best explained by a joke from a few years ago. A young resident of a building entrance without an elevator had bought an apartment on the fifth floor. The day he was moving furniture into the apartment with a friend, somewhere in the middle of the strenuous climbs due to the weight, he asked a neighbor who was smoking a cigarette on the landing of the second floor for help several times, but to no avail. Since he no longer had the strength to move the household appliances, the young resident also asked the neighbor why he was not helping him. The neighbor, with murderous calm, replied that “I can’t help you because I suffer from a serious sexually transmitted disease. I don’t want to…!”

And this is how Rama's refusal to lift Balluku's parliamentary immunity is explained, despite the fact that immunity is not a shield from independent justice. And the same goes for Berisha's failure to resign after two lost elections, despite the fact that he wrote it with his own hand in the statute approved on December 11, 2021. Ultimately, this is autocracy or despotism. Leaders who ask neither for tradition, nor for the constitution, nor for the law, but simply satisfy their personal greed for unlimited power.

Thus, the parliamentary republic of 1998 has been transformed into the republic of Rama and Berisha of the "I don't like it" type. As the neighbor who didn't move from his seat with a cigarette in his mouth replied, "Fix!"