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ENA 11/04/2017 1
The communist dictatorship legacy as an obstacle to the Albanian transition: a
qualitative and quantitative study two decades after the regime collapse
ECPR Joint sessions of workshops, Nottingham, 2017 : The legacy of authoritarian
regimes – Political culture, institutions, and democratisation
Elda Nasho Ah-Pine
1
Keywords: Albania, authoritarian practices legacy, feeling of political representation,
elites’ behavior.
Albania experienced the roughest and longest dictatorial regime of the communist
bloc that isolated the country for over 46 years from the rest of the world
2
. The country still
faces significant obstacles to the construction of democracy and the rule of law due to a very
strong political polarization between the ruling elites
3
and to corruption at all levels of
government
4
. The elections are an indicator of the distribution of power between the elites
trying to impose themselves. The two central groups continue to be the Democratic Party
(PD) on the one hand and the Socialist Party (PS) on the other hand. Nevertheless, the
majority group can not really impose itself decisively. The result of these successive
elections is the quasi-permanent blocking of politics. Officials are being replaced, and several
state bodies are being politicized
5
.
A week after the beginning of the Arab Spring in Tunisia, in January 2011, Tirana
also became the theater of uprisings and clashes. Following the resignation of the Deputy
Prime Minister Ilir Meta, accused of corruption, and guided by the opposition PS, several
hundred thousand demonstrators demanded the resignation of the government. The latter
one was accused of corruption, abuse of power and manipulation of the last legislative
elections in 2009. The demonstration turned into a violent confrontation between the police
and the protesters
6
. The year 2012 that followed and which precedes the election of the
ruling Socialist Party, is one of the strongest polarization periods of the last decade in
Albania. We argue that this unstable situation is largely due to the autocratic practices
inherited from the communist regime that still affect the political life in this country.
Literature on Albania, which is still rare and often adopts a historical perspective, seeks
to understand and qualify the relations between the two main parties which share the
1
PhD in Political Science specialized in European policies and international relations. She is currently
an assistant professor at the University of Clermont Auvergne. She is also an associate researcher at the IEP of
Grenoble / PACTE and at the Institute of Strategic Research at the Ecole Militaire (IRSEM), Paris. She is the
author of several contributions including the most recent Quel sens pour l’intégration européenne ? Une
typologie du sense of community par groupe de pays en Europe, (What meaning for European integration? A
typology of the sense of community by group of countries in Europe), Revue française de science politique (RFSP),
February 2017, 66 (6), p. 965-989, and l’Impact des acteurs internes et externes sur la démocratisation en
Albanie depuis la chute du régime communiste (Impact of internal and external actors on democratization in
Albania since the fall of the communist regime), Revue Est Europa, November 2016, p. 263-286 (co-written with
Wolf-Dieter Eberwein). E-mail address: elda.nasho_ah-pine@uca.fr.
2
Albania has even gone some way further than Maoist China by abolishing any form of private property or by
prohibiting any form of cult.
3
According to Pridham (2000:143), « National elites are top post-holders in the largest political,
governmental, economic, military, professional, communications and cultural organizations…who are able, by
virtue of their authoritative positions in powerful organizations and movements of whatever kind, to affect
national political outcomes regularly and substantially ».
4
According to Transparency International, Albania's Corruption Perception Index (CPI) is 33 (ranked from 0,
the highest perceived level of corruption, to 100, the lowest perceived level of corruption), placing the country
at the 110th place among the 175 states surveyed in 2014, available at <http://www.transparency.org/>.
5
The OSCE and the EU insist on depoliticization.
6
Four protesters were shot dead, 30 other protesters and 17 policemen were wounded.
ENA 11/04/2017 2
power
7
. Works on the autocracy’s legacy’s role on the relationship between the governed
and the governors are almost nonexistent. Yet, we argue that the difficult transition to
democracy is primarily explained by the legacy of authoritarian practices between these
stakeholders.
We examine this hypothesis by a crossover study that concerns both the Albanian
population and elites
8
. Firstly, we perform a qualitative analysis on the legacy of the
practices from the past among the Albanian elites based on: secondary literature and reports,
and on interviews with Albanian elites. This study clearly shows the need to change the
political class mentality still marked by the old regime’s authoritarian practices (I). Secondly,
a quantitative analysis on the population’s feeling of political representation validates the
examined hypothesis as well. This study exploits the European Social Survey and is based
on a Principal Component Analysis (II).
I. The Albanian elites and the autocratic practices inherited from the
past
Political elites are powerful actors in the path of democratization. Pridham considers
that in transitional periods, the elites are faced with three challenges: "alternation to power,
party alliances and the role of the opposition, which are forms of interaction between the
political elite and mass pressures" (Pridham, 2000: 155). The qualities required hereby refer
in particular to the elites’ capacities and leadership skills and to their attachment to
democratic values.
Moreover, according to McFaul, the nature of the new regime depends on the new
elites’ beliefs: if the leaders believe in democratic principles, they establish democratic
institutions. If, on the contrary, they believe in autocratic ones, autocratic institutions will be
established. The ideological orientation of the most powerful party, largely determines the
new regime’s nature (McFaul, 2002: 224).
In the case of Albania, the elites seem to persist believing in autocratic principles
which lead them to appropriate the power in the same way they did in the past (2). This is
also confirmed by the persistence of the politicization practices within the state and the
administration (3). This analysis is based on: secondary sources; on reports from
international and non-governmental organizations and on 15 semi-directive interviews that
we carried out in Albania at the end of 2010 with several Albanian elites and international
representatives (1).
7
See Biberaj E. Albania in transition: The rocky road to democracy. Westview press Boulder, CO, 1998 ; Bogdani
M., Loughlin J. Albania and the European Union: the tumultuous journey towards integration and accession.
I.B.Tauris, 2007 ; Nezaj I. La transition politique en Albanie: 1991-2005. ANRT, 2008. (Lille thèses); Kajsiu B.,
Bumçi A., Rakipi A. Albania: A Weak Democracy, A Weak State. Albanian Institute for International Studies,
2002; Pettifer J. «Albania. The democratic deficit in the post-communist period ». In: Pridham G, Gallagher T (éd.).
Pridham, G.–Gallagher, T.(eds., 2000) Experimenting with Democracy. Regime Change in the Balkans;
Pettifer J., Vickers M. Albania: From Anarchy to a Balkan Identity. Hurst and Company, London, 2000 ; Vickers
M. The Albanians: A Modern History. I.B.Tauris, 2001.
8
ENA 11/04/2017 3
1) Methodology: Semi-directional interviews with Albanian elites
We met with representatives of the Albanian and international elites during a
research visit to Albania which lasted 11 days in December 2010. Within the framework of a
qualitative methodology, we organized semi-directive interviews with 15 personalities
(lasting between 20 and 90 minutes) that we make available to readers. We were interested
in interviewing influential figures that occupy key positions related to the democratization
and the EU integration process of Albania.
Thus, these personalities were chosen first, according to the importance of the
functions occupied in the government, the opposition, the media or the civil society. More
specifically, we interviewed the following national elites: 3 government representatives in
strongly connected to integration issues, such as the Deputy Minister for Integration; 2
representatives of the opposition, occupying important positions in the Albanian Socialist
Party and who has, since the last elections of 2013, become Minister of Foreign Affairs and
Mayor of Tirana; a representative of the judiciary, namely a highly positioned person within
the High Court (the highest Albanian justice authority); 3 media representatives known for
their duties or specialties, including the editor of one of the most widely read newspapers
and one of the most prominent political journalists in Albania; 3 representatives of civil
society, including an official of one of the most influential NGOs at the national level. We
then wanted to go into more details about some of the most important policy reforms
required under the Copenhagen Criterion. These include administrative and electoral
reforms. That is why we have spoken with two of the most recognized specialists in these
fields in Albania as well. Finally, it appeared to us essential to compare the responses of the
national elites with two high-level representatives of the EU and the OSCE in Albania. All
these interviews are presented in the Appendix 1.
2) Ideologies and practices of power dominated by an autocratic past
More than 20 years after the fall of communism the debate between Albanian elites
remains ideological. Indeed, despite the collapse of the regime in 1991
9
, the Albanian
transition continues to involve very often the "reproduction of the communist nomenklatura
in the political, administrative and economic realms" (Bogdani and Loughlin, 2007: 172).
This reproduction of the mentalities is accompanied by the personification, the
monopolization and the misuse of power for personal gains.
First of all, in the early years of transition, the ruling Albanian elites are: either
former Communists who needed to drop the old political practices and replaced them with
new ones; or inexperienced people in need to learn how to govern. In any case, these elites
do not have the professional education necessary to the new modes of government. During
the communist regime, studies in political science and international relations almost did not
exist. When they did exist they were very rudimentary and politicized under the pressure of
the Marxist-Leninist ideology. Beyond qualifications, the elite also lacked the professional
experience required to govern the country according to new democratic standards and
practices. All these factors explain in large part the great incompetence and irresponsibility
characterizing the Albanian elite in the early years of transition.
Nevertheless despite the fall of the dictatorship, the legacy of the communist regime
continues to hamper the work of the elites because, "Albania had the misfortune to be
9
Yet the first free elections were organized in 1992.
ENA 11/04/2017 4
governed by one of the most repressive communist regimes in the world and for a longer
period than in any Eastern European state "(Biberaj: 75). Most of the elites have preserved
their communist mentalities so far, as most of them belonged to the Albanian Labor Party
(Nezaj: 82, Bogdani and Loughlin: 172). Namely, during our interviews in Tirana, we could
observe the persistence of several elites’ fears to express their opinions freely, as it was the
case during the dictatorial regime
10
. For instance a senior official was deeply embarrassed by
our question on the judicial system independence
11
. He found the question very difficult and
asked me: "This discussion is not for any other purpose? Is it just for your
doctorate?"(Interview No. 9). Explanations of these fears can be found in the exchanges we
had with Niazi Jaho, member of the Albanian Helsinki Committee and specialist in electoral
reform
12
. On the one hand, he supports the idea of persisting communist practices which
consist on “labeling” someone on the behalf of his opinions in favor or against the
government. On the other hand, our interviewee regrets another communist practice still
occurring in Albania nowadays: the confusion of the Party and the State. He confided to
us:
"Some intellectuals have left the country. But for others who remained we should keep in mind that
the political situation can get worse ... Let’s take my own example. Personally I don’t mind, but if one
heard the discussion I’m having with you, he would say that I support the left wing, even if I were
fond of the right one. Why would one have such a judgment? Because I have said things that are
intended to criticize the current government. [...] I mean “labeling” is done in such a way that if you
don’t do what we [he implies the government] want, you don’t belong to our camp. Where do I
belong then? This is very dangerous because we must not oppose the political line of the government
in power. [...] It is not fair to continue observing one of the characteristics of the monistic const itution
from the past, ie the merger of Party and State. That means the state blindly applied all what the
Party said. Yet 20 years later, similar practices are persisting at the very moment I'm talking to you.
There is the same merger between the current party and the state. This means that the party gives
directives to the parliament, to the government. But this is not done in writing. Ot herwise it would be
discredited"(Interview No. 11).
Beyond the confusion between the State and the Party, another autocratic practice
inherited from the past seems to permeate many Albanian politicians. It is the constant
confusion between the individual and the institutions. The individual’s dominance over
them is reinforced by the weakness of these institutions (Kajsiu, 2002: 19). The analysis
of the former Foreign Minister, Besnik Mustafaj, whom we interviewed in Tirana also
illustrates this statement:
"[…] I think that the weakest point in Albania regarding the Copenhagen criteria concerns the rule of
law. This is due to the legacy…, so we are a nation where ..., how to say, the relationship between
institutions and individuals (the individual personalities that have led the state), has always been
somewhat conflictual. Generally throughout the history of the 20th century, we have been led by very
strong personalities, be it King Zog who has made codes, constitutions, laws – many things that are in
relation with the building of a solid state –, however its personality prevailed, its personality as a
statesman predominated over the institutions. Today we are in the same situation as in the past, so we
still ignore the situations in which the State with its institutions are more important than the
personality of the one who leads the State […] " ; " […] the personality of the head of state
dominates the state..., so even if he declares that he is at the service of the State, in reality he
10
Moreover, we had to put out the dictaphone twice to reassure two of our interlocutors that their words were
not going to be transmitted for political purposes.
11
The justice system is at the heart of Albania's institutional reforms as part of its European integration. The
judicial institutions are the ones with the lowest level of trust among the population (Albanian Institute for
International Studies). According to the OSCE report on Albania 2010: «On the rule of law, judicial
independence remains a challenge. The judiciary can often be subject to external interference and, despite
public statements on the need to select the best judges possible, judicial appointments and transfers often lack
sufficient transparency. » (OSCE : 2).
12
He is the author of « Reforma zgjedhore, perseri me vonese », Komiteti shqiptar i Helsinkit, Tirane, 2006,
189 p. (« The electoral reform, still late », the Albanian Helsinki Committee, Tirana, 2006, 189 p.)
ENA 11/04/2017 5
dominates the State [...] ". Institutions "are still too weak, not yet strong enough, to kick out someone
who controls them" (Interview No. 13).
Moreover wars of cults of personalities between men of power are another
illustration of the persistence of the communist mentality among the Albanian leaders.
Indeed, the British political analyst Miranda Vickers (2003)
13
considers that "the names of
the two leading leaders [Berisha and Nano] are synonymous with what many Albanians feel
to be the cause of the Albanian politics paralysis and of the prevalence of a communist
mentality in the political leadership"
14
. Indeed, the Albanian political scene is dominated by
the alternating political personalities sharing the same view of power, which makes it very
difficult for the Albanian elites to change.
Furthermore, these authoritarian practices inherited from the past also prevent the
development of leadership skills. Albania has experienced governors with leadership skills
for short periods, such as Skanderbeg, Fan Noli, Ismail Qemali. During the communism
Enver Hoxha chose Mao Tse Tung and Stalin as role models. After the regime collapse,
Albanian political leaders assumed relatively weak leadership qualities, since they remained
strongly imbued with communism and the aforementioned leadership models. Mustafa
Nano
15
considered for instance that: Albania was "governed by political leaders
inexperienced in the procedures of democratic life, known for their incompetence and
irresponsibility". Indeed, the Albanian elites still seem to be lacking several essential
qualities required of leaders in democracies, such as the capacity to cooperate, negotiate and
compromise, the tolerance and the openness. For Ditmir Bushati
16
, Deputyof the Socialist
Party in opposition at the time of the interview, the absence of the compromise culture is a
feature that tends to characterize the whole political, social and cultural Albanian life:
"We are very far from the culture of compromise. When we have in Albania this very big problem
related to the culture of compromise in politics! We can observe the same thing in academic life,
monopolization, the same people! We can observe the same thing in civil society, the same reflection
and this up to the Albanian football federation or in sport, the same thing! So how would it be possible
tomorrow for this country to be ready ... to be ready and start sitting at the table of the 27, or the 32
or the 35, when Albania will be an EU member and will negotiate with other countries with totally
different mentalities, coming from different cultures and backgrounds! ... "(Interview No. 5).
Besides, this culture of personification and monopolization of the power inherited
from the past is also reflected in other practices such as the appropriation of power for
personal gains (rapid enrichment of leaders and their relatives)
17
and the corruption
practices. Indeed, according to several authors and personalities with whom we talked to,
Albanian politicians tend to put their personal interests above the interests of the Nation.
For Bogdani and Loughin in particular, “politics in Albania is a ‘zero-sum game’, in which
the winner takes all and the loser gets nothing." (2007: 175). The authors point out that the
Albanian elites are very much involved in economic life and they also play a significant
role in the black market and in monopoly situations. A category called "businessman
politicians" occupies an important place on the Albanian political scene. Their power is
based on corruption and clientelism and they have no political or ideological program of
13
Vickers M. Testing Albania’s stability. ICG, 29 octobre 2003.
14
The author wrote these words when Fatos Nano was prime minister and Sali Berisha the opposition leader.
15
Albanian political analyst, journalist of several written and televised media, Nano, M. "Zgjedhje pa zgjidhje"
(“Elections without solutions”), Shekulli, Tirana, 28 October 2003.
16
Current Minister of Foreign Affairs.
17
This refers to the benefits of what was called the "blloku", a neighborhood in the center of Tirana where
communist elites and their families enjoyed considerable advantages because of their positions within the
regime.
ENA 11/04/2017 6
their own. Thomas Carothers
18
also supports the same argument. He characterizes the
Albanian democracy as ‘feckless’, and he points out that “the Albanian political elite from all
major parties are widely perceived as corrupt, self-interested, dishonest and not serious
about working for their country’ (ESI, European Stability Initiative, 2003:13)
19
. This
argument is also confirmed by Transparency International (which states that Albania's
Corruption Perception Index
20
(CPI) is 33
21
, putting the country in the 110th place among
the 175 states surveyed in 2014
22
), and by several interviews we had in Tirana (interviews
n° 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13). For instance, according to Franck Dalton, Director of the
OSCE's Rule of Law and Human Rights Department in Albania that we interviewed in
Tirana, the desire to preserve these corruption practices is the reason that conducts the
Albanian politicians to sabotage to some extent the integration within the EU:
"Well, I do not have the impression that the Albanian politicians have a sincere interest in being part
of the European Union. I have the impression that for the majority of the people who have power here,
integrating the European Union would be a negative thing, that is to say, they would not have enough
space to do things, that may not be in the interest of the people, but that are being done here
regularly. On the other hand, they have an interest in pretending to join the European Union for
electoral reasons, they don’t want one to know that they (laughs) do not have a sincere interest to
integrate [...]. I told you at the beginning of the interview that for the political class there are many
negative things, that is to say that I do not see anything positive for the political class, because now
they can steal more or less without any problems, they can achieve the desired results without
problems from the courts. That is to say, if Albania joined the European Union and were obliged to
apply European standards, of course this would raise certain problems "(Interview No. 14).
Finally, beyond the practices of personification and misappropriation of power for
personal gains, another important feature shows the persistence of such practices among the
Albanian elites. It is the strong politicization of the state and the administration each
time a new government comes to power. This politicization also contributes to the extreme
political polarization between the ruling elites and thus represents a major obstacle to the
democratization of the country.
3) The persistence of the politicization of state and public administration
Despite the new public service reforms that have taken place since the early 2000s
under the impetus of the EU integration perspective, several practices of the past which are
not aligned with the public administration management principles, still persist in Albania.
The main issue concerns the politicization of public administration which continues to
paralyze the proper functioning of the state.
First, in spite of the change in power after the 1997 crisis
23
, internal political
struggles and frequent changes in the socialist governments between 1997 and 2005 led to
new waves of re-politicization and redundancies of public servants at all levels of state
18
Thomas Carothers is the Vice-President of Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He
is the founder and the director of the “Democracy and Rule of Law program” and he oversees Carnegie Europe
in Brussels.
19
This has contributed to the fact that the Albanians are very dissatisfied with their political leaders.
20
The Corruption Perception Index (CPI) ranks countries according to the degree of corruption perceived in
public administrations and vis a vis to the political class.
21
The ranking is from 0 (the highest perceived level of corruption) to 100 (the lowest perceived level of
corruption).
22
Available at <http://www.transparency.org/>.
23
See our doctoral thesis on this crisis, « Une communauté de sécurité en Europe ? L'exemple des Balkans
occidentaux », under the direction de Sabine Saurugger, Grenoble, Sciences Po Grenoble, 2015, 809 p.
ENA 11/04/2017 7
institutions. In its report, SIGMA
24
states that despite the adoption of legal reforms to
protect the status of state employees, each ministerial office places its own relatives in key
positions (SIGMA, 2004: 32). What are the reasons for these new redundancies and
cooptations? According to Arolda Elbasani :
"Whereas initial politicization of the state was justified as part of the regime change and cleansing of
the former communist collaborators, on-going patterns of politicization in favor of each incoming
cabinet seemed to hint at the various parties' strategies and leaders' tactics to co-opt the state
administration and benefit from the spoils of controlling its resources"(Elbasani, 2013: 97).
Then the 2005 elections were seen as a test by the EU, particularly with regard to
administrative reforms. It is the PD that won these elections after eight years of PS
governance. Nevertheless, despite the change in power, most of the legal initiatives adopted
by the previous governments were either delayed or blocked. And above all, the law is used
as a means to control the state officials. In fact, neither the EU mechanisms nor the legal
framework prevents a new wave of dismissal when a new government comes into power.
Indeed, a 2006 parliamentary report drawn up by the opposition argues that after the
elections, the new government adopted a new internal regulation ordering the priorization
of “candidates that have played a special role in elections” for employment in state
administration (Albanian parliament, 2006: 3, quoted in Elbasani: 98). This regulation had
alarming consequences. In the first year, almost half of the public administration (4,500
people) was dismissed. The majority of the places that were released in this way were
allocated to political activists, and without much consideration to the positions’
requirements. Furthermore, the same parliamentary report gives many examples in which
people were recruited in contradiction with the position profile.
Thereafter, in the elections of 2009, the PD was reconducted and new coalition
parties joined it. The latter ones placed their own supporters in the ministries and other
state institutions. We illustrate this argument by an event which provoked a lot of media
coverage and polemics in 2011. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, who is also the leader of the
coalition party (The Socialist Movement For integration
25
), instructed the Minister of
Economy (who is also from the same party) to recruit "old school friends" in well-placed
positions in the Ministry (Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2012, cited in Elbasani, 98). The ruling
majority also benefited from legal vacuums in order to place its own candidates in various
positions within state institutions. The most widely employed tool for dismissing civil
servants is the use of the restructuring of the state institutions, which can happen up to
three times a year. This restructuring strategy transforms several positions occupied by civil
servants into unnecessary ones, situation that leads in fine to their redundancy. Then those
officials who lost their positions as a result of frequent restructuring are automatically
placed in waiting lists as required by law. However, in contrast to what the law requires,
these waiting lists are never used for new recruitments. In fact, the new employees are
recruited through temporary contracts which are a way of circumventing both the waiting
list procedure and the recruitment by competition (Malaj, 2010, cited in Elbasani, 98-99).
Thus, recruitment on temporary contracts has become the main means of recruitment within
the state administration, contrary to what is stipulated in the Albanian Constitution
requiring recruitment by open competition. One example is the Prime Minister's adoption of
24
SIGMA stands for Support for Improvement in Governance and Management. It was set up in 1992. It is a
joint initiative of the EU (within the PHARE program) and the OECD (notably in the framework of the Center
for Cooperation with Non-Members (CCNM ). This support, which has been in place for more than 20 years
now, aims to provide the post-communist countries with the OECD expertise and assistance in order to
accompany them in the reform of the public administration. For more information, see the official website of
SIGMA <http://www.sigmaweb.org/>.
25
In Albanian, Lëvizja socialiste për integrim (LSI).
ENA 11/04/2017 8
a decree in 2004, which allows temporary contracts to be used, but as an exceptional option.
These contracts are intended to recruit persons for a maximum period of three months when
replacement is needed. However, in practice, persons recruited under the 2004 system (ie
contracts that are supposed to be temporary ones) often retain their positions for longer
periods of time and, in general, they are confirmed in the same posts by "open recruitment".
By way of illustration, the 111 candidates who were recruited via "open recruitment"
methods at the Ministry of the Interior have all previously worked for this Ministry (Malaj,
2010, cited in Elbasani, 99).
All these events show an extreme polarization of the Albanian political life. This
phenomenon goes very far by the end of Berisha's governance (who will withdraw from the
political life at the end of his term in 2012). Indeed, Albania experienced a deep political
crisis between 2009 and 2012 that we were also able to observe by the time of our interviews
in Tirana. The parliamentary elections of June 2009 were at the root of the crisis, since their
legitimacy was challenged by the opposition Socialist Party who called for a recount of the
votes. This request was rejected by the PD
26
. As a result, the opposition held a
parliamentary boycott to make its voice heard from September 2009 to May-June 2010. In
May 2010, the PS organized a hunger strike that lasted 19 days. Consequently, the country
was in a deep crisis and the most important reforms in the electoral, judicial and
constitutional fields were obstructed. The European Union repeatedly tried to play a
mediating role in this crisis by inviting politicians to resolve their problems and negotiate.
Under the EU pressure, the PS returned to the Parliament. Yet, it continued to boycott
parliamentary work on a piecemeal basis
27
. The intervention of a delegation of the European
Parliament on 10 November 2010, whose aim was to obtain a compromise, was a failure.
The two parties remained in their positions. The political situation, already extremely
complicated, worsened with the resignation of the Deputy Prime Minister Ilir Meta on 14
January 2011 after a video of Top Channel television showing him negotiating illegal
commissions. Following this event, demonstrations organized by the opposition took place,
demanding the government’s resignation. The first demonstration on 21 January 2011 was
accompanied by violence as three demonstrators were killed by the police and several dozen
people were injured. The international community called for calm. On 28 January 2011, the
opposition organized a peaceful demonstration in commemoration of the people killed
during the previous demonstration. The PS leader, Edi Rama, promised other "peaceful"
demonstrations to demand the "end to the regime" of the Prime Minister Sali Berisha
28
.
These events have only aggravated the situation of polarization in Albania as recalled
by the European Commission in its progress report of October 2011: “The violent incidents
of 21 January 2011, which led to the death of four demonstrators, amplified the climate of
26
The latter concluded an alliance along with the Socialist Movement for Integration (LSI, Levizja socialiste per
integrim) in order to have the majority. The leader of LSI, Ilir Meta was appointed Deputy Prime Minister in
the government of Sali Berisha.
27
Armand Mero, a Voice of America political journalist whom we met in Tirana, told us about this institutional
blockage due to the polarization of political life: "Without going into much detail, without wanting to take
part, to me it is absurd that one can not have the right to see how his vote was counted, used or not. There are
constitutional aspects related to the reforms that I’m not interested in at all. What I mean is that everyone has
the right to know what happened with his vote. But all this political crisis shows precisely the persisting low
level of the functioning of institutions, and the persisting low level of the understanding of the functioning of
democracy in Albania. It is a way of doing politics in Albania: "I am in power, so it is I who decides things". We
do not understand things in the sense of democracy, in the sense of the collaboration between the different
parties. I do not mean that the opposition must agree on everything because it doesn’t make sense… But there
are fundamental things that are part of basic rights "(interview No. 8).
28
Le Courrier de l’Albanie, Belgzim Kamberi, « Albanie : l’opposition a rendu hommage aux manifestants tués »,
29 janvier 2011, <http://balkans.courriers.info/article16791.html> (The Courier of Albania, Belgzim Kamberi,
"Albania: the opposition paid tribute to the killed protesters ", 29 January 2011,
<http://balkans.courriers.info/article16791.html>).
ENA 11/04/2017 9
mistrust not only between political forces but also vis-à-vis State institutions” (2011: 5). It
was not until September 2011 that the PS agreed to resume parliamentary work and the two
parties have collaborated since in a climate of frequent tension
29
.
The political polarization and the autocratic practices inherited from the past in
general are also strongly felt by the Albanian population interviewed in the framework of
the European Social Survey a few months before the 2013 parliamentary elections. Indeed,
several arguments that we put forward on the Albanian elites are also reflected in regard to
the population. First, a large majority of the Albanian population surveyed is deeply
bipolarized between the PD and the PS. Another considerable part of this population does
not respond when asked what party it feels closer to. Fear of retaliation as in the past
remains the most highly probable explanation to this behavior.
II. Legacy of the past on Albanian population: a study of the feeling of
political representation
We base our analysis on the European Social Survey of 2012 (ESS6-2012 ed. 2.2).
We selected the sub-population from Albania. It represents 1201 individuals. However, 230
cases contain at least one missing value so we decided to remove them from the dataset.
Therefore, our analysis relies on a sample of 971 individuals. Our goal is to study the
different tendencies and types of feelings of political representation among the Albanian
population with respect to their political government and system.
In that perspective, we use both descriptive statistics and multidimensional statistical
techniques
30
. In the former case, we attempt to characterize the individuals that dot not feel
close to any party in Albania since this sub-population represents almost half of the sample
under study. In the latter case, we apply Principal Component Analysis on 14 active
variables in the goal of analyzing more in details the feeling of political representation
expressed by the respondents. As we shall see, these results echo the results we highlighted
previously about the study of the Albanian elites interviews.
We begin with introducing the different variables we chose to carry out the PCA (1).
Then, we analyze the statistical results and show how they support several observations we
discussed previously (2). Finally, we state some general conclusions we can make from this
quantitative analysis (3).
1) Variable selection
First, we present the active variables we use in our PCA. Then, we introduce the
supplementary variables. In particular, we focus on the variable of interest which is the
political party the respondents feel closer to.
a. Active variables
We chose 14 active variables that are related to the democratization of Albania in the
goal of investigating the legacy of the communist dictatorship in this country. Moreover,
29
Albania was granted the EU candidate status only by June 2014, 4 years after its request of that statute.
30
All statistical results were provided by the statistical tool R. As for PCA, we used the FactoMineR package.
All detailed numerical results are given in appendix (2 and 3).
ENA 11/04/2017 10
these variables are related to the questions we exposed previously with the qualitative
analysis of Albanian elites:
1. The first set of variables is about questioning the individuals about their general
idea of democracy. More precisely, the questions in the survey are, “how
important you think it is for democracy in general that…”:
- “… opposition parties are free to criticise the government” (Oppcrgv)
- “… the government takes measures to reduce differences in income levels” (Grdfinc)
2. In contrast, the following chosen variable is about the individuals’ opinion
about democracy in Albania in particular:
- “How satisfied are you with the way democracy works in Albania?” (Stfdem)
3. A group of variables relates to the functioning, the transparency and the trust
in national institutions:
- “About the Albanian government , how satisfied are you with the way it is doing its job?” (Stfgov)
- “The government in Albania explains its decisions to voters” (Gvexpdcc)
- “Trust in country's parliament“ (Trstprl)
- “Trust in the legal system“(Trstlgl)
- “Trust in the police“(Trstplc)
- “Trust in political parties“(Trstprt)
4. Other variables have been chosen in the problematic area of elections which are
often contested in Albania. The election issues also caused the deep political crisis
at the time of the study as mentioned before:
- “National elections in Albania are free and fair“ (Fairelcc)
- “Governing parties in Albania are punished in elections when they have done a bad job” (Gptpelcc)
5. Then, given the important socio-economic inequalities in Albania, we have
added a variable to study the feeling of representation on these questions:
- “The government in Albania protects all citizens against poverty” (Gvctzpvc)
6. In addition, we chose a final set of variables from the database to analyze the
feeling of the population regarding the degree of openness of Albanian
politicians vis-à-vis the national media on the one hand and vis-à-vis European
governments on the other:
- “The media in Albania are free to criticise the government” (Medcrgvc)
- “Politicians in Albania take into account the views of other European governments before making
decisions“ (Pltaviec)
ENA 11/04/2017 11
All 14 variables are measured with respect to an ordinal qualitative scale from 0 to
11. We synthesize these variables and give the meaning of the two extreme values of the
scale in Table 1.
Table 1 - Active variables and scales
Variable
coding
Associated question in ESS
Scale
Oppcrgv
How important you think it is for democracy in general that
opposition parties are free to criticise the government?”
0 : Not at all important
10 : Extremely important
Grdfinc
How important you think it is for democracy in general that the
government takes measures to reduce differences in income levels”
Stfdem
How satisfied are you with the way democracy works in Albania?
0 : Extremely dissatisfied
10 : Extremely satisfied
Stfgov
About the albanian government, how satisfied are you with the
way it is doing its job?
Gvexpdcc
“The government in Albania explains its decisions to voters”
0 : Does not apply at all
10 : Applies completely
Trstprl
Trust in country's parliament
0 : No trust at all
10 : Complete trust
Trstlgl
Trust in the legal system
Trstplc
Trust in the police
Trstprt
Trust in political parties
Fairelcc
National elections in Albania are free and fair
0 : Does not apply at all
10 : Applies completely
Gptpelcc
Governing parties in Albania are punished in elections when they
have done a bad job”
Gvctzpvc
The government in Albania protects all citizens against poverty
Medcrgvc
The media in Albania are free to criticise the government
Pltaviec
Politicians in Albania take into account the views of other
European governments before making decisions
b. Control variables and variable of interest
In addition to the active dimensions introduced above, we use gender and age as
control variables. The latter variable is a quantitative one. As we shall see, these variables
are projected near the center of the principal plan thus they do not impact the relationships
emphasized by PCA.
As we explained previously, we use another supplementary variable which is of
particular interest in our study. It corresponds to the political party that an individual
feels closer to:
- “Which party feel closer to” (Prtclal)
The list of different political parties is given in Table 2. In addition to these 8
possible answers, there are two other categories. The first one “Other” represents all other
political parties in Albania. The second one is “NoAnswer” and, in that case, the individual
did not answer any political party. This latter category happens to be very important in our
analysis as we shall discuss in the next paragraph.
ENA 11/04/2017 12
Table 2 - Political Parties in Albania
Political Party
Year of
foundation
Leader
Political trends
Democratic Party (PD)
1990
Lulzim Basha (as of July
2013)
Right
Socialist Party (PS)
1991
Edi Rama
Left
Socialist Movement for Integration (LSI)
2004
Ilir Meta
Social-democratic, more
center left
Party for Justice, Integration and Unity
(PDIU)
2011
Shpëtim Idrizi
Represents the Cham
Community
Republican Party (PR)
1991
Fatmir Mediu
More rhigt wing than PD
Human Rights Union Party (PBDNJ)
1992
Vangjel Dule
Represents the Greek
minority in Albania
New Democratic Spirit (FRD)
2012
Bamir Topi
Center right
Red and Black Alliance (AK)
2012
Kreshnik Spahiu
Nationalist
2) Results of descriptive statistics and PCA
a. Descriptive statistics of the Prtclal variable and the “NoANSWER”
category
First of all, it is interesting to have a look at the distribution of the variable Prtclal. It
is given in Table 3.
Table 3 - Frequency table of Prtclal (Political parties)
Political Party
Frequency
Relative
Frequency
PD
223
22.97%
PS
204
21.01%
LSI
11
1.13%
PDIU
11
1.13%
PR
5
0.51%
PBDNJ
4
0.41%
FRD
16
1.65%
AK
13
1.34%
Other
11
0.41%
NoANSWER
480
49.43%
The mode (ie the most frequent category) is NoANSWER and it represents almost
half of the respondents. This is a particularly noteworthy observation that we are going to
study further from the PCA results point of view. The two second most frequent responses
are respectively PD and PS which are the two main political parties in Albania as
highlighted in the first part of the paper. They both have pretty similar relative frequencies
of 22.97% and 21.01% respectively. These two categories gather almost 44% of the
responses which implies that the remaining political parties that were cited apart from these
two, only represents 6% of the sample.
These observations confirm the bipolarization of the Albanian society. However, it
is interesting to further analyze the sub-population that represents the NoANSWER
ENA 11/04/2017 13
category. Such an analysis will be provided in what follows through the results we obtain
from PCA and afterwards.
b. PCA results
Even though the variables selected in Table 1 are categorical, they are ordinal and
thus we chose to interpret them as quantitative. As a result, we use PCA to analyze these
data. We decide to keep the first 3 principal components which represent more than 57% of
information (see Appendix 2).
Analysis of the variables
In Figure 1, we expose the projection of the variables on the first two principal
components while in Figure 2, the variables are represented in the principal components 1
and 3.
Figure 1 – Variables projection on the principal components 1 and 2
ENA 11/04/2017 14
Figure 2 – Variables projection on the principal components 1 and
3
The first axis is strongly positively correlated with the following variables: Sftgov,
Sftdem, gvctzpvc, fairelcc, trstprl, trstlgl, gvexpdcc (see Appendix 3). It allows opposing
respondents that are typically satisfied with the work done by the government from those
who are not. The first group is on the positive part of the axis (on the right of Figure 1 and
Figure 2). They are also in trust with the national institutions; claim that elections are fair
and that the Albanian government protects them from poverty and that they can be
criticized as well. Consequently, the second group, on the negative part of the axis, has
totally opposite opinions on these matters.
The positive part of the second axis (on top of Figure 1) can be characterized by the
following variables: medcrgvc, grdfinc, gvexpdcc, gptpelcc (see Appendix 3). In the negative
part, the most correlated variables are: trstlgl, trstprt, trstprl. Accordingly, we can say that
the second axis allows differentiating a feeling of political representation that is mostly
based on general trust and the one that relies on more detailed criteria which include media,
economical questions and transparency.
The third axis is clearly defined by the variables oppcrgv and grdfinc (see Appendix
3). It is interesting to mention that these two variables are about the opinion of the
respondents in regard to democracy in general and not in the case of Albania in particular. It
allows us to exhibit the degree of understanding of democracy as a political system, of the
respondents.
Finally, note that the quantitative control variable age is projected close to the origin
which indicates that this variable does not have a significant effect on the correlation
relationships showed by the results of PCA.
ENA 11/04/2017 15
Analysis of the individuals
We provide below the projection of the 971 individuals on the three principal axis. In
order to analyse both the bipolarization and the NoANSWER sub-population we underline
previously, we colored the individuals with three different colors:
- Blue is an individual that answered PD for Prtclal.
- Red is an individual that answered PS for Prtclal.
- Green is an individual that provided NoANSWER for Prtclal.
- Depending on the graph, Black is the complement sub-population.
In - Individuals projection on the principal components 1 and 2Figure 3 individuals
are represented on principal components 1 and 2 while in Figure 4 they are projected on axis
1 and 3 (see Appendix).
represented on axis 1 and 3.
Figure 3 - Individuals projection on the principal components 1 and 2
ENA 11/04/2017 16
From Figure 3 and Figure 4, we can make the following comments. The blue and red
sub-populations that represent respondents that feel close to PD and PS respectively, are
clearly opposed in regard to the principal components 1. This axis allows us to highlight the
bipolarization of the Albanian society. As far as the NoANSWER group is concerned, it is
more concentrated on the left part of the first axis. In other words, these individuals tend to
be unsatisfied with regard to the government and do not trust the national institutions in
general.
Concerning the second axis, both sub-populations evenly spread around zero.
Consequently the second axis is not discriminant regarding PD and PS respondents.
Likewise, the NoANSWER group is evenly distributed with respect to the second axis.
Thereby, whatever the main categories of Prtclal, the feeling of political representation can
be distinguished between a general trust on the government and the national institutions
and a more analytical view of the “political scene” based on media, economic and
transparency assessments.
If we inspect more carefully Figure 4, then we can observe that compare to the red
and blue groups, the green sub-population is more dense in the negative part of axis 3
(vertical axis). As a consequence, the sub-sample having provided the category NoANSWER
to the question “which party do you feel closer to”, tends to give lower importance than the
mean average, to the facts that in a democracy it is important that the oppositions parties are
Figure 4 - - Individuals projection on the principal components 1 and 3
ENA 11/04/2017 17
free to criticize the government and that the government should take measures to reduce
differences in income levels. These observations suggest that a non-negligible part of the
Albanian electorate might not have sufficient political skills to recognize some important
aspects of a democracy and thus still suffers from the legacy of the dictatorship communism.
In addition to these plots, we also project in Figure 5, the barycenter of the different
categories of Prtclal and the categories of the control variable gender as well.
Prtclal, in order to have a more synthesized view of the tendencies.
We can make the following comments out of Figure 5. Firstly, the control variable
gender is closed to the origin thus, it does not impact on the correlation relationships
representation obtained by PCA.
Secondly, PD and PS are clearly opposed to each other since the two categories are
projected on both sides of principal component 1. We can also observe that the first axis
typically opposed left parties to right parties. The former ones are globally negative about
the government unlike the latter ones. The FRD which is a center-right party is the only
exception, since it is positioned on the left side, close to the PS. This projection confirms our
argument about the strong bipolarization in Albania.
Then, the NoANSWER category is the barycenter that is positioned the lowest in
axis 3. It is the category of the variable of interest Prtclal that tends to provide the lowest
scores for Oppcrgv and Grdfinc which are about democracies in general.
We can also observe that some political parties have particular positions on the
second and the third axis. Indeed, PBDNJ is positioned on top of axis 2 in contrast to PR,
which is the barycenter having the lowest coordinate on this same component. Furthermore,
the category Other has a high positive coordinate on axis 3. However, the frequencies of
these categories are very small and therefore, one should be careful about the interpretation
of the position of these political parties on the three first axis of PCA.
Figure 5 - Supplementary categorical variables projection on principal components 1
versus 2 (left) and 1 versus 3 (right)
ENA 11/04/2017 18
3) Some possible explanations about the statistical results
First, we recall that almost half of the people interviewed did not indicate which
party they feel closer to
31
. Several hypotheses could explain this behavior of self-censorship:
it could be, for example, a possible crisis of representativeness (as often observed in
nowadays democracies), a possible lack of interest in politics, a probable sense of shame in
openly declaring its political opinions, or this behavior could be explained by the fear of
being persecuted on the ground of one’s political ideas - which frequently happened in
Albania during the old regime. We believe that such a rate of non-response to the question
of partisan affiliation can be explained mainly by the fear of expressing political ideas,
which is still very present among the Albanian population. Indeed, local observers support
this argument related to the fear of reprisals when they analyze the Albanian population’s
quasi unanimity towards the prospect of EU integration. Accurately they assert that this
phenomenon is due to:
"To the political culture of a society, which is accustomed to being afraid to say openl y what it thinks,
and which especially might be afraid to speak against both what the government and the opposition
would say, or even vis à vis the media, the NGOs, the research institutes, the religious institutions,
including "ambassadors", who are considered by many Albanians as saviors and guides "(Albanian
Institute for International Studies, 2012: 13-14).
This Albanian Institute of International Studies’ analysis is moreover supported by
the sayings of the current Foreign Minister Ditmir Bushati that we interviewed in Albania
by the end of 2010:
"Unfortunately, unfortunately, I asked a question and I did it publicly: how is it possible that 93% of
the Albanian population is in favor of European integration? How is that possible that I never saw a
demonstration in the street, that they [meaning the Albanian people] came and surrounded the
parliament by swinging us all at eggs, and by saying " we are for the European integration, those who
are in the government have more responsibility because they are ruling the country, whereas you the
opposition have less responsibilities", but at least they would have come and have surrounded the
parliament as do the students in the most democratic countries in the world. They should have send
eggs at all of us! It's been a year ... well, it's been almost 5-6 months since I was in parliament, because
for six months we boycotted it, and I said publicly that I feel my own responsibility here, I feel it, I feel
it. At the same time those who have power can not say that "look, the fault lies with the opposition",
because it is they who rule the country”, the opposition has its share in the game, there is national
interest, common responsibility at stake ... "(Interview No. 5).
Secondly, the quantitative study of the feeling of political representation shows a
very high level of polarization of political life. Indeed, from the factorial representations,
we observed a clear division between the supporters of the PS and the PD, while the other
political parties collect very little favorable opinions. It also appears that the NoANSWERS
category are respondents that are largely challenging the policies of the government in
power. This polarization is explained by several problems preventing the democratization of
the country such as: the contestation of fraudulent elections, the dramatic manifestations
that have sometimes resulted in the loss of human lives, or the high level of corruption
scandals involving politicians who have broken out in the media. These issues which have
been examined in the first part of this paper are largely attributed to a high number of
autocratic practices still persisting from the past.
31
This non-response rate can also be matched with the relatively high abstention rate during the legislative
elections of 2013, which is 46.5%.
ENA 11/04/2017 19
III. Concluding remarks
This article has argued that the difficult transition to democracy in Albania is
primarily explained by the legacy of authoritarian practices that still affect the country two
decades after the regime collapse. This hypothesis was examined by a crossover study that
concerned both the Albanian population and elites.
The first study based on interviews with the Albanian elites showed that the political
class mentality is still marked by the old regime’s authoritarian practices preventing the
democratization of the country. These practices involved the "reproduction of the
communist nomenklatura”, and the persistence of communist practices among the Albanian
elites such as : the “labeling” of people on behalf of their opinions, the confusion of the Party
and the State, the constant confusion between the individual and the institutions, the wars of
cults of personalities between men of power. These practices continue to lead often to fears
of reprisal as in the past. Moreover the legacy of such practices of personification, and
monopolization of power is strengthened: by weak elites’ leadership skills; through the
practices of the appropriation of power for personal gains and corruption; and by the strong
politicization of the state and the administration and of the Albanian political life as a whole.
Thus Albanian elites, whether old or new, remain largely impregnated by the authoritarian
practices of the communist regime. They don’t master yet the essential principles of
democracy such as the compromise democratic culture which could allow for a healthy
political dialogue away from confrontations and violence still characterizing the Albanian
political life. Several elites that we interviewed in Tirana talk about the need to change the
mindsets of the political class, necessary to the country’s democratization and to its EU
integration. In any case, our interlocutors advocate the need for "the construction of an
open-minded political and cultural elite, but at the same time a political elite with common
principles, with common cultural references, with common values with the European elites
"(Interview No. 5 and Interview No. 13).
Then these conclusions on the influence of the communist dictatorship legacy as an
obstacle to the Albanian transition among the Albanian elites are also confirmed by our
second study, a quantitative one, based on the analysis of the feeling of political
representation among the population. Indeed these autocratic practices of the past continue
to affect the Albanian population, which is at best bipolarized between the two main political
camps and, at worst, under the fear of declaring its political opinions. However, the Albanian
people are at some extent optimistic when asked about the future, since in a survey
organized in 2012 by the Albanian Institute for International Studies, 42% of respondents
believe that the democracy will be consolidated in the future (2012 b : 8).
IV. References
Albanian Institute for International Studies (AIIS), The European perspective of Albania:
Perceptions and Realities, Tirana, 2012, < http://www.aiis-albania.org/ >.
Albanian Institute for International Studies (AIIS), “Albania in the next ten years – Politics,
Economy, Society - Perceptions” Tirana, 2012b, < http://www.aiis-albania.org/ >.
Biberaj E. Albania in transition: The rocky road to democracy. Westview press Boulder, CO,
1998.
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Bogdani M., Loughlin J. Albania and the European Union: the tumultuous journey towards
integration and accession. I.B.Tauris, 2007.
Elbasani A. « EU administrative conditionality and domestic obstacles: slow, hesitant and
partial reform in post-communist Albania ». In : Elbasani A (éd.). European Integration and
Transformation in the Western Balkans. Europeanization or Business as Usual?. Routledge, 2013.
p. 85–101.
ESI - European Stability Initiative. Western Balkans 2003: Assistance, cohesion and the new
boundaries of Europe - A call for policy reform, 2003, disponible sur
<http://www.esiweb.org/pdf/esi_document_id_37.pdf >.
European Commission, Albania : Progress Report, SEC (2011) 1205, COM (2011) 666,
Brussels, 12/10/2011.
Kajsiu B., Bumçi A., Rakipi A. Albania: A Weak Democracy, A Weak State. Albanian Institute
for International Studies, 2002.
McFaul M. « The Fourth Wave of Democracy and Dictatorship: Noncooperative
Transitions in the Postcommunist World ». World Politics. 2002. Vol. 54, n°2, p. 212‑244.
Nezaj I. La transition politique en Albanie: 1991-2005. ANRT, 2008. (Lille thèses).
OSCE, Report by the Head of the OSCE presence in Albania to the OSCE Permanent
Council, 9 september 2010.
Pettifer J. « Albania. The democratic deficit in the post-communist period ». In : Pridham G,
Gallagher T (éd.). Pridham, G.–Gallagher, T.(eds., 2000) Experimenting with Democracy. Regime
Change in the Balkans.
Pettifer J., Vickers M. Albania: From Anarchy to a Balkan Identity. Hurst and Company,
London, 2000.
Pridham G. The dynamics of democratization: a comparative approach. London and NY:
Continuum, 2000. 348 p.
Vickers M. Testing Albania’s stability. ICG, 29 octobre 2003.
V. Appendice
1) Liste des personnalités interviewées à Tirana dans le cadre d’entretiens semi-
directifs en décembre 2010
Interview
number
Interviewees’
identities
Interviewees’ positions
Interview
Date
1
Edmond Hoxha
Deputy Minister of Integration
16-12-2010
2
Hasan Metuku
Director of the Department in charge of Legislation and Coordination at
the Council of Ministers
17-12-2010
ENA 11/04/2017 21
2) Eigenvalues of the PCA procedure
> res.pca$eig
eigenvalue percentage of variance cumulative percentage of variance
comp 1 5.4828783 39.163416 39.16342
comp 2 1.2959849 9.257035 48.42045
comp 3 1.2343292 8.816637 57.23709
comp 4 0.8861408 6.329577 63.56667
comp 5 0.7792028 5.565734 69.13240
3
Edmond Agolli
Director of National Programs at the National Agency for Research,
Technology and Innovation. Former European Research Framework
Project Manager FP7 2001-2006 Science and Technology.
16-12-2010
4
Erion Veliaj
Since October 2010, member of the National Assembly of the PS.
Coordinator of all branches of the PS in immigration issues and
Responsible for the PS of the international relations. Founder of Mjaft in
2003, the first big NGO in Albania. Founder of the G99 opposition party
and leader until the end of 2010.
13-12-2010
5
Ditmir Bushati
PS Deputy. Member of the Parliamentary Stabilization and Association
Committee EU / Albania. Key negotiator for Albania for the signing of
the Stabilization and Association Agreements in June 2006. Former leader
of the NGO European Movement Albania. Professor of European Law.
15-12-2010
6
Mimoza Picari
Political journalist, Director of the political news program "Insid" on the
national channel Vision Plus (one of the most watched) and also for the
same channel, director of channel 7 tri Digital +. Journalist of the only
Journal on Economics, Monitor.
10-12-2010
7
Robert
Rakipllarri
Editor-in-chief of the daily (one of the most read) Panorama
11-12-2010
8
Armand Mero
Political journalist of Voice of America, and correspondent for the Italian
press agency ANSA.
14-12-2010
9
Vasil Bendo
Advisor to the President of the High Court since 1 January 2009, the
highest Albanian court of justice. He was legal expert at the Council of
Ministers and was Legal Adviser to the Prime Minister from 1992 to
1997. From 1997 to 1998, he served as Director of the Legal Department
of the Council of Ministers.
17-12-2010
10
Luan Omari
Professor of Constitutional Law and first Dean of Law at the Law
University of Tirana. He is the most well-known constitutionalist of
Albania. Former Vice-President of the Venice Commission. Member of the
Academy of Sciences. Author of a reference book on the rule of law and a
book on constitutional reform published in January 2011.
14-12-2010
11
Niazi Jaho
Member of the Albanian Committee of Helsinki since 1995 and legal
advisor in this Committee since 1990. Specialist in electoral reform.
Graduated from the Faculty of Law in Saint Petersburg. Author of a book
on electoral reform in 2006.
20-12-2010
12
Leart Kola
Director of the direct action department since 2003 within the NGO
MJAFT, one of the biggest and oldest NGOs in the field of good
governance and citizen awareness.
17-12-2010
13
Besnik Mustafaj
Leader of the NGO AFALC (Albanian Forum for the Alliance of
Civilization). Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, 2005-2007. Elected after
the victory of the PDA in 2005. He is dismissed after disagreements with
Berisha. From 1992 to 1997 he was the Ambassador of Albania in France
and some other Western countries. He was also the representative of
Albania to UNESCO.
13-12-2010
14
Frank Dalton
Director of the OSCE State of Law and Human Rights’ Department in
Albania.
21-12-2010
15
Michel Gontier
Adviser to the Ambassador to the EU Delegation in Tirana, in charge of
international and external relations, national expert. Regional issues
Specialist : worked in Kosovo, worked for the integration of the Baltic
countries.
14-12-2010
ENA 11/04/2017 22
comp 6 0.7551373 5.393838 74.52624
comp 7 0.6372157 4.551541 79.07778
comp 8 0.5902605 4.216147 83.29393
comp 9 0.5238711 3.741936 87.03586
comp 10 0.4557260 3.255186 90.29105
comp 11 0.4450678 3.179056 93.47010
comp 12 0.3533056 2.523612 95.99372
comp 13 0.3259553 2.328252 98.32197
comp 14 0.2349246 1.678033 100.00000
3) Coordinates (coord), quality (cos2) and contribution (contr) of variables
> res.pca$var
$coord
Dim.1 Dim.2 Dim.3 Dim.4 Dim.5
trstprl 0.72310654 -0.3039291 0.24795717 -0.09168990 -0.02548649
trstlgl 0.69184313 -0.3406927 0.18316008 0.30262837 0.17656596
trstplc 0.61262084 -0.2686904 0.18196618 0.47821656 0.17609787
trstprt 0.60558095 -0.3077135 0.24668652 -0.13978379 0.13331262
stfgov 0.80787786 -0.1011730 0.01974363 -0.21133956 -0.30885839
stfdem 0.77306993 -0.1473949 0.08253715 -0.10613004 -0.33560984
oppcrgv -0.15721083 0.3121487 0.68785207 -0.28833021 0.04376212
grdfinc -0.08379561 0.4021714 0.67944508 0.13869943 -0.05863140
fairelcc 0.73854041 0.1233449 -0.15188163 -0.21586402 -0.17645151
medcrgvc 0.40118783 0.4375585 -0.06647479 0.51898299 -0.45316581
gptpelcc 0.61048715 0.3691955 -0.19732828 0.01635039 0.27659971
gvctzpvc 0.75934395 0.1913690 -0.14364469 -0.24861615 0.06717922
gvexpdcc 0.67153751 0.3704460 -0.10634133 -0.02833158 0.11679410
pltaviec 0.59213255 0.3356925 -0.07054782 0.02826271 0.39250351
$cos2
Dim.1 Dim.2 Dim.3 Dim.4 Dim.5
trstprl 0.522883063 0.09237290 0.0614827572 0.0084070383 0.0006495611
trstlgl 0.478646918 0.11607154 0.0335476161 0.0915839333 0.0311755372
trstplc 0.375304298 0.07219453 0.0331116900 0.2286910761 0.0310104584
trstprt 0.366728286 0.09468763 0.0608542374 0.0195395079 0.0177722556
stfgov 0.652666643 0.01023598 0.0003898111 0.0446644089 0.0953935049
stfdem 0.597637121 0.02172524 0.0068123810 0.0112635848 0.1126339645
oppcrgv 0.024715244 0.09743682 0.4731404673 0.0831343109 0.0019151233
grdfinc 0.007021704 0.16174183 0.4616456218 0.0192375318 0.0034376405
fairelcc 0.545441936 0.01521397 0.0230680287 0.0465972742 0.0311351351
medcrgvc 0.160951675 0.19145740 0.0044188974 0.2693433388 0.2053592549
gptpelcc 0.372694560 0.13630534 0.0389384494 0.0002673353 0.0765074018
gvctzpvc 0.576603229 0.03662211 0.0206337965 0.0618099910 0.0045130476
gvexpdcc 0.450962626 0.13723021 0.0113084785 0.0008026787 0.0136408627
pltaviec 0.350620961 0.11268942 0.0049769946 0.0007987805 0.1540590045
$contrib
Dim.1 Dim.2 Dim.3 Dim.4 Dim.5
trstprl 9.5366528 7.1276216 4.98106630 0.94872489 0.08336227
trstlgl 8.7298476 8.9562413 2.71788234 10.33514474 4.00095317
trstplc 6.8450234 5.5706306 2.68256550 25.80753291 3.97976757
trstprt 6.6886090 7.3062288 4.93014635 2.20501168 2.28082557
stfgov 11.9037230 0.7898225 0.03158081 5.04032874 12.24244969
stfdem 10.9000618 1.6763499 0.55190956 1.27108298 14.45502652
oppcrgv 0.4507714 7.5183609 38.33178839 9.38161427 0.24577984
grdfinc 0.1280660 12.4802244 37.40052587 2.17093401 0.44117407
fairelcc 9.9480950 1.1739315 1.86887162 5.25845043 3.99576812
medcrgvc 2.9355325 14.7731193 0.35799990 30.39509542 26.35504743
gptpelcc 6.7974254 10.5175097 3.15462428 0.03016849 9.81867705
gvctzpvc 10.5164332 2.8258126 1.67166069 6.97518856 0.57918785
gvexpdcc 8.2249250 10.5888741 0.91616388 0.09058140 1.75061787
pltaviec 6.3948340 8.6952727 0.40321451 0.09014149 19.77136299
