On March 31, 1991, four months after the founding of the Democratic Party, parliamentary elections were held, which, for the first time in four and a half decades, were pluralistic. The ruling Labor Party won about 2/3 of the seats.

Based on the Constitutional Provisions adopted a few weeks later that guaranteed a democratic political order, Ramiz Alia was elected President of the Republic with these 2/3 of the votes in Parliament. On March 22, 1992, in the first parliamentary elections, this time, both pluralistic and free and fair, the opposition Democratic Party won nearly 2/3 of the seats. Ramiz Alia resigned after a few weeks. His term was five years and the Constitutional Provisions provided only for high treason and impossibility of health, in addition to voluntary resignation, as reasons for dismissal.

And although the new majority did not have the legal means to remove him from office, Alia wisely realized that for him, as a relic of the communist past, coexistence in the beginning of this era was impossible. Perhaps one can be surprised when I present as a model of political maturity the action of the last communist ruler overwhelmed by previous oppressions. But this is the type of story which, viewed from a distance and without any emotions, serves to teach something.

Three decades later, in the wake of another defeat in the April 25 parliamentary elections, the Democratic Party held internal elections. A majority of about 2/3 reconfirmed the same party leaders. Half a year later, 2/3 of the delegates of the party assembly want to change not only the statute and the program of the DP but also its leaders. In the party membership the support for these changes is significantly even higher.

In both cases the majority, as a political pendulum, shifts from one side to the other within a short time. Comparisons in history are not easy; but there is a parallel between the pendulum in 1991-92 and in 2021. The most obvious explanation for the first vote is lethargy and the moment. Voters were not yet aware of the need for change as well as their role and ability to make that change. The second vote clearly takes place after the awareness of liberation and in the possibility of choice.

In the reaction to the pendulum by the communist ruler and by the current leaders of the DP, the parallel ends and the contrast begins. DP leaders initially denied a priori the possibility of convening a party assembly even though this was a clear statutory right of delegates. Then when the initiative took shape it was again rejected, labeling it anti-American. However, they represented a party in which the majority of the membership and functionaries were (suddenly) such without explaining how they could lead.

In the absence of clarification of the major issue of political legitimacy, the discussion shifted to formal issues of statutory procedures. Undoubtedly the latter matter. However, their role and the procedures as a whole, whether in the party, the state, or the enterprise, are to enable parties with opposing wills or interests to reach a reasonable and balanced solution.

If one party does not recognize the other party and its rights then the reference to formal proceedings loses its meaning. The announcement from the Lezha Podium that the party assembly will convene on December 11 was criticized as non-statutory. Formally it is such. But not to place this event in the context when party leaders deny a priori to the majority of the party an elementary statutory right is like having the wolf at your feet and dealing with his footprints across the fence.

At the same time, the claim of the leaders that the will of 60% of the delegates will be taken into account if they find the signed requests to the chief of protocol but in no way when they are deposited in the office next to that of the chairman of the council is an unprecedented level of bureaucratic absurdity. The rejection of the initiative of the majority and consequently the refusal to negotiate with the initiators over the date and agenda of the assembly is an example of personal mala fide and contempt for the basic norm of democracy and the rule of law. A sad step back compared to thirty years ago.