Why Albania's Democratic Party should feel ashamed every December 8

If you had asked the students protesting against Albania's communist regime during the December 1990 rallies why they were protesting, many might have struggled to articulate a detailed answer. Yet one belief united them all: power had to change. Enver Hoxha had ruled Albania for forty years, and his time had to end.

The man who rose to power after communism’s fall was Sali Berisha. From that moment on, everything in Albanian politics revolved around his dominance. Over the past thirty-four years—just six years shy of Hoxha’s rule—Berisha has held almost every major political office, led the Democratic Party, one of Albania’s two main parties, and stubbornly refused to step aside.

This unyielding grip on power has tarnished the meaning of December 8, the day Albanians honor the 1990 anti-communist protests. Once a loyal ally of Enver Hoxha, Berisha served as a Party Secretary and vowed to protect the Party of Labour from degradation. Decades later, his refusal to relinquish power echoes the very authoritarianism those protests aimed to dismantle.

For the Democratic Party and Albania’s right-wing supporters, this legacy should be a source of embarrassment. The protests of 1990 were about bringing change and renewal to Albania. Yet the Democratic Party failed to establish mechanisms for leadership rotation, betraying the spirit of those protests and squandering a historic opportunity for the country.

Over the years, the Democratic Party has devolved. Once a reformist force committed to reshaping the nation, it has devolved into a vehicle for protecting the interests of the Berisha family. The transformation is stark: from Albania’s first pro-Western party, dedicated to rebuilding the country based on democratic values, it has become the most anti-Western political force in Albania. Once vocal critics of communist leaders who lived in luxury while ordinary Albanians struggled, the party is now led by a man accused of corruption, with his family reportedly owning nearly 500 apartments of dubious origin.

The Democratic Party has done everything to dishonor the legacy of the December 1990 democratic movement. Nevertheless, instead of confronting this failure, it subjects the public to the spectacle of its aging leader organizing new rallies—a stark reminder that he has been in politics since those very protests.

It is clear Sali Berisha has no intention of stepping down from the Democratic Party's leadership. What remains uncertain is whether the Democratic Party can outlast him or if it will collapse first. The Party of Labour survived five years after Enver Hoxha’s death. It is hard to predict how long the Democratic Party might survive without Berisha, but one thing is certain: Berisha cannot survive a single day without the Democratic Party. After thirty-four years, the Democratic Party’s greatest achievement is producing its own version of Enver Hoxha—Sali Berisha.

The article initially appeared in Albanian titled: "Pse PD duhet të ulë kokën çdo 8 Dhjetor"