The protest will not help the DP, even if Berisha leads it himself

The Democratic Party now dominates the protest by sheer numbers, except on days when a national protest is announced and Albanians linked to Albin Kurti, along with members of the diaspora, arrive in larger groups.

During the week, the picture is clear. Look at the photos from the boulevard and around 80 percent of those gathered there are Democratic Party protesters and officials.

Little by little, they have also lost the caution they showed in the first week, when they were still attacking the protest from a distance. Now they give interviews from the square and help direct the next protest.

Berisha has made that easier for them. He has “forgiven” them enough to let them pretend not to hear the chants of “Berisha in prison”.

Look at the photos from the past three days, when the crowds have thinned sharply, and you see Gjin Gjoni, Belind Këlliçi, Klevis Balliu, Jorida Tabaku and the Democratic Party’s whole protest core.

Even the “protester” whom Rama tried to call back into his own fold, treating him as part of the civic protest, is in fact one of the oldest and most regular Democratic Party protesters.

So, statistically, the square is now in the hands of the Democratic Party.

The paradox is that this does not help the Democratic Party.

The reason is simple.

The protest became popular because it presented itself as the protest of an opposition excluded from the system — even as an opposition whose place in the sun had been taken by Berisha’s Democratic Party.

That is why it became popular inside Albania.

Abroad, Trump made it famous.

That protest is now dead.

But the square is not dead.

Nor is the spirit of the protest.

The square will probably remain open for a long time. It will be used to promote the new ideological parties that come out of this protest.

But the spirit of the protest will remain against both the Democratic Party and the Socialist Party, even if the Democratic Party is the force keeping it alive in the square.

At this point, not even the Democratic Party can stop the protest from being against the Democratic Party while standing inside it.

The same applies to the Socialist Party.

Anyone who leaves the Socialist Party and joins the protest thinking the party needs reform will not be able to redirect the protest’s spirit.

That spirit is not about reforming the Socialist Party or the Democratic Party.

It is about removing them over the long term.

So anyone in the Democratic Party or the Socialist Party who thinks they can reform those parties by going into the square should understand this: street pressure will not open those parties up. It will make them harder and more closed.

That does not mean people should not leave the Democratic Party or the Socialist Party if they believe they should.

But they should leave knowing that the task is to defeat those parties, not reform them through protest pressure.

No new Democratic Party or new Socialist Party will come out of this protest.

The only new thing that can come out of populist and revolutionary protests like this is new ideological parties.

And Albania clearly has two possible directions for them.

The first is a radical left, similar to Syriza in Greece and other movements in Europe. Its core appears to be around Arlind Qorri.

It has all the traits of Vetëvendosje in Kosovo: militant structures, aggression, fanaticism and fixed populist ideas rooted in a statist left.

This group is also the main organisational core of the protest.

The second ideological party, and possibly the larger one, is an Islamic party.

Its presence is clearly visible in the square, with more money and more commitment than the radical left.

I am not talking only about hybrid interference by Iran or Turkey through people linked to mosques. I am talking about a real current of political Islam, which in the square turns into antisemitism, hate speech against Israel and the United States, and a frightening religious discipline in organisation.

I am not saying such a party will be born this week, this month or even this year.

But on the horizon, it is the other ideological party moving toward Albania.

Everyone else is wasting their energy.

Albania could also have had a radical right. But the European and global models of the radical right are mostly racist, anti-immigrant and nationalist parties, and there is little public demand for that here.

In fact, conspiracy theorists are more popular than they are.

In this square, you are more likely to find people who believe the Earth is flat than people who care that Skanderbeg Square is named after Albania’s national hero.

That is why the effort of the main Democratic Party figures who fill the square every day deserves credit.

But it does not help their party.

It simply does not count for them.

Even if Sali Berisha himself appeared in the square, it would still be an appearance against Sali Berisha at Democratic Party headquarters.

This is the strange case in which protesters do not need to protect the protest from the Democratic Party or the Socialist Party.

They benefit even when those parties show up.

The protest has become an open auction against them, where even they are allowed to make a bid.

But not in order to reform themselves.

Only in order to be defeated.

Originally published in Albanian as: Protesta nuk i bën punë PD-së edhe sikur ta udhëheqë vetë Berisha