The Electoral Code is not Reform when it closes the Race!

By Gent Sinani

Deputy Chair of LRE Rinisja

The Electoral Code is not a product to be sold in attractive packaging.

It is the door through which political representation enters.

If that door is narrowed, it does not matter how well the reform is branded.

You may wrap the words in “open lists,” “national proportional representation,” “stability,” “modernization,” or “equality of the vote.” In the end, one question must be asked, what happens to the citizen?

Is the field opened for him to hear new alternatives, or is a race made to look cleaner while entry remains guarded by the same actors?

In marketing, packaging may bring a person to the product once.

But if the product does not keep its promise, trust is lost.

In politics, that loss is heavier, because the citizen does not lose only a purchase.

He loses the belief that participation is worth it.

This is what is happening with the debate over the Electoral Code.

The Socialist Party and the Democratic Party present the formula as reform, while in essence they preserve the architecture that has kept the established forces visible and new forces dependent on their permission.

And when a force that appears new agrees to become part of a formula that narrows entry for others, the citizen must ask calmly, is he seeing a real opening, or a new face placed over the same old architecture?

A list may be opened, and the field may still remain closed.

A threshold may be presented as order, and still become a wall.

A reform may speak in the name of the citizen, and still limit his possibility of creating new representation.

The problem is not only the technical design.

The problem is the effect.

And the effect of a Code that increases the weight of money, media, inherited names, patronage, and the old networks of power is clear, it makes the race more expensive for the free citizen and safer for those who already occupy the stage.

LRE Rinisja is not opposing the Code because it seeks privilege.

We are not asking for a shortcut.

We are not asking for a political favor.

We are asking that the rules not be built to protect the monopoly of representation.

In an honest market, the product is measured by the person.

In an honest democracy, the alternative is measured by the citizen.

A Code that fears the new alternative is not reform.

It is closure in better packaging.

And the citizen does not need closure made to look better.

He needs a race in which he can hear, compare, and choose freely.

Gent Sinani

Deputy Chair of LRE Rinisja