Prime Minister Rama has reflected on the popular youth protest that is approaching its ninetieth day. “Besa”, “Prania besnike” and “Pasqyrë Albania” are his three inventions linked in a papal bull. Although coined by combining the four initial letters of the words besim, empathy, service and engagement, the word besa that emerges from this acronym sought by scholars is immediately absorbed by the homonym Besa that names one of the oldest moral codes of our race. As such, it is conveyed in public communication in the first sense, as if the prime minister has called on the scene the ancient besa to deal with current developments. We cannot doubt his good intentions a priori. But “Besa” and “parania besnike” are meaningless terms in the vocabulary of Western politicians. We never hear them respond to the reasons that raise thousands of citizens to their feet with words that name centuries-old moral codes or the discipline of the party-state.

In the times we live in, there is only one aspiration that would justify a great popular pact: full membership in the European Union. But this pact has been in place for 34 years.

Today, all day long, 98 percent of Albanians support the country's entry into the EU. Those who have delayed this dream are the establishment parties, their leaders, Berisha, Rama and others. Who have wanted and want the impossible: a propaganda-type integration that does not violate their rule by political flag-bearers in the government and in the respective party barracks.

Today, the first risk that Albania will not touch the dream of integration within the set deadline is Rama's geopolitical pirouettes that question his loyalty and allegiance to the codes of the European political family where we want to become a part, are his discouraging and inhibiting attitudes as far as he has the power of investigations in the highest spheres. In its actualization as it is being launched in successive party meetings, "Loyal Presence" destroys, if it has any, the meaning of serving the people with devotion regardless of the state party.

The meaning forged over decades in our anti-democratic parties remains, which is that of tightening ranks, of homogeneity, of Stalinist-Enverist loyalty to one, of ignoring, denigrating and even excluding those who think differently. The loyal presence sounds like a warning. We have the “enemy” in front of us. Either with me, or against me. Either united around the party, or outside it. There is no middle ground. As such, the loyal presence turns into a call for the new siege of the next elections with the army of officials, public servants, patronage supporters, many of whom are also public servants. How? In addition to updating the data of the famous register of safe or potential voters of the Socialist Party over the years, a list nominally manageable by the system in a small country like Albania, "Pasqyrë Albania" comes into play, the new name of the portal "Albania we want", which as everyone can remember was launched with great fanfare many years ago by Mr. Rama.

We are in the same fable of regimes where the network of people's reception offices and the system of letters from the people the day before yesterday, the platform "The Albania they want yesterday" and "Pasqyrë Shqipëria" from tomorrow onwards take on the task of solving individual problems and troubles that the system, the public administration, mainly creates for people. With one hand it creates them, with the other it will probably solve them, putting them in a debt of gratitude. The same story, with the difference that when the people were waiting, the citizen saw and spoke to the official. Now he doesn't see it anymore.

The government, municipalities, institutions have the obligation to deal with the personal complaints of the people. But both "Prania besnike" and "Pasqyrë Shqipëria" mark at best the narrow horizon and the separative understanding of the prime minister about the deep reasons for the protests and dissatisfaction in the country... It seems as if the prime minister wants to take away from the squares people who come out for a personal matter and that's it. There are and will be such, but the protests, demands and popular expectations are another thing.

Protesters in the streets and thousands of others across the country are fed up with the government's failures, with what is wrong with the country. Good solutions for everyone get answers without going into debt and personal troubles. What answer can the word "Pasqyra Albania" give for depopulation, the strong downward trend and the aging of the population? What about the anti-development models that have severely hit agriculture and livestock in the country with foreign tourists who, even when they are elite, bring their own food, in the sense that they consume products from the countries they come from? What about monopolies, oligopolies and dirty money that kill equal opportunities and fair competition? What about half of the food that Albanians pay more expensively than in Europe? What about ridiculous pensions? What about the return and compensation of land to former owners, while governments without exception have given away public land without returning the debt to the former owners?

Very few examples are mentioned from the long list of examples that "Pasqyrë Shqipëria" does not mention. Just as it does not mention the urgent need to return to citizens the right to elect their deputies by name, with a majoritarian or proportional system with open lists. Unfortunately, in all the reflections so far of the prime minister on the protests and the situations that the country is going through, the further strengthening of his electoral state party without ideology, which acts only as an idea and a mechanism of power, stands out. There always comes a moment, the wise say, when weakness lies in strength. This is the case./Mapo