The disintegration of the opposition's electoral campaign by Ilir Meta

Recently there is an obvious trend of disintegration in Berisha’s and Meta’s campaign. It seems almost impossible for them to gather at least a couple hundred people in their meetings and this was obvious in Kukes, Berat and Fier. What makes things worse is the fact that these meetings were supposed to represent not only the specific cities, but also their regions.

Looking at the decrease of support towards their campaign, it is now clear that Berisha and Meta are finding it difficult to have enough people who identify with them. Now, in order to avoid the bad publicity, they could have opted to organize these meetings indoors, but apparently it is too late for them to switch tactics.

Personally, I cannot say for sure that these small numbers of people are the only ones who identify themselves with the opposition. There have to be a lot more supporters. However, the lack of people during opposition’s public meetings is something that has to do with the Berisha-Meta alliance in the opposition. While people may be willing to vote for the opposition, it appears that most of them are not willing to be seen in public next to Ilir Meta.

Meta’s alliance with Berisha is quite natural, since they are two political leaders who share common worries. However, the supporters of their respective parties do not seem to have much in common. Apart from the fact that Berisha comes from a right wing ideology, whereas Meta is a former socialist, they are also separated from each other due to the political consequences that the Democratic Party has suffered because of Meta’s Socialist Movement for Integration. This internal rivalry has made Ilir Meta even more nervous during a visit in Berat and Skrapar. According to sources from within the opposition, Meta was almost involved in a physical confrontation with a restaurant owner in Skrapar, accusing him of being ungrateful for what he has done for the city. It is said that the confrontation would have denigrated into a public beating were it not for the intervention of Meta’s bodyguards.

Ilir Meta is showing similar signs of anger and nervousness in other meetings as well. Apparently, he has realized that his presence in the opposition’s electoral meeting is causing people to leave and therefore he wants to play the tough man against Edi Rama, hoping that this way he can win the hearts of Democrats. The situation has tensed even more due to the opposition’s contrast with the Socialist majority, who are seeing increasing numbers of supporters in their meetings during the last week of the electoral campaign.

I hope that in the upcoming days, Ilir Meta will not repeat his scenes of 2021 and destroy the opposition’s campaign completely. He has already started to play the tough guy again and the only thing missing to complete the picture is another blow up against the United States. This time, I hope that he will change the location where he thinks he will be executed. This time, instead of Tirana’s suburbs, he should pick his own city, Skrapar, where he thinks he is getting betrayed by everyone.