The Balkans has a rich and complex history. The region is a bridge between East and West, a place where many geopolitical interests and civilization differences collide. Because of this turbulence it has not been easy to establish stable principles of government.
However, a seed of positive change was recently sown in the unlikeliest of places. In Albania, former prime minister and president, Sali Berisha, returned to active politics to help steer the Albanian Right and the country as a whole from the socialist path it has embarked on. After he was unjustly expelled from the Democratic Party’s (DP) parliamentary group by its former chairman, he became the catalyst for a remarkable, bottom-up movement.
The right-wing electorate, disappointed, discouraged, and nearly hopeless, needed encouragement from its historic leader. The promise of change, conservative ideas, and the charisma of Sali Berisha sparked the movement’s awakening. In Spring 2022, Berisha won reelection as the DP’s chairman, unified the right-wing electorate around him, and vowed to transform his political force into a true conservative party. His main promises after his return into active political life was to enact a primaries process within his party to select the candidates for municipalities and parliament. This would help democratize the party and the implement conservative principles.
Conservatism is seen as a real chance to embrace change through a new vision that puts citizens, the national interest, and Albanian families first by cutting taxes, reducing public debt and spending, encouraging freer and fairer markets, restoring law and order, fighting corruption, and protecting individual freedoms.
To that end, Sali Berisha asked one of his oldest collaborators, current member of the party bureau, and previous member of Berisha’s government, Edith Harxhi—along with a a group of young intellectuals and professionals in various areas, Nikola Kedhi, Melisa Braci, Gjorg Kodra, and Albert Bikaj—to create a political document that would stand at the center of the refounded Democratic Party. It was to be inspired by Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, Roger Scruton, Frank Meyer, Milton Friedman, and many other conservative icons.
This is the first time this type of document has been published and accepted as a philosophical vision by a political party in Albania and, to the knowledge of the authors, in the Balkans. This is a document that appeals to and takes the best from all factions and streams of the center-right. It is a coherent, inspirational synergistic union of values and ideas that aims to put Albania on the path of development and growth, with the hopes of making it the most prosperous country in the region, a worthy member of the European Union and NATO, and a reliable strategic partner of the United States, the United Kingdom, and all freedom loving countries. For the Democratic Party to have a chance to win back power in Albania, it needs to unite around and promote the vision, principles and values described in this document.
The Constitution of Center-Right Values
When we started drafting the Constitution of Center-Right Values, we had two main goals: restoring civilized discussion of ideas in the country, and articulating an axis of values, ideas, principles for the largest center-right party in the country.
The DP constitution begins with the idea that the individual is the smallest minority in society and the building block of every group. However, humans are also social beings. The individual is born into a family, a social context, a community, and a tradition. It is within these contexts that the individual forms bonds and builds an identity. The relationships that ground the individual are what conservatism seeks to protect. As Edmund Burke put it, society ought to be aware of the natural relationship between the living, the dead, and the unborn.
We also recognize that the individual is born with certain inalienable freedoms and rights, which are not granted to him by a bureaucratic structure, but by nature. The individual delegates some of these rights to representatives in government. The relationship between the elected and the voter as a form of legitimate government is the foundation of liberal democracies.
For the individual to delegate these rights, he must be convinced by a vision that gives him the certainty that his freedoms will not be violated. This has been a political challenge in recent Albanian history. Many of our political parties do not offer voters a vision but are content to criticize other groups, without providing hope or solutions. As a result, many Albanians have accepted monetary offers in exchange for votes or left the country. This has damaged the notion of representation and led to a government of non-representative elites.
A manifesto that clearly conveys our ideas, values, and principles is necessary to inspire, motivate, and convince the individual to go to the ballot box. The hope that is generated from a strong, optimistic, inspiring vision, articulated by a new and capable elite, is crucial to persuade people to cast their ballots and so protect voters from being manipulated by handouts.
The Role of Tradition
The conservative understands the vital role that tradition plays as a source of accumulated knowledge. This awareness constitutes one of the most fundamental distinctions between the Left and the Right. A leftist thinks that the individual can be perfected through rationalist mechanisms of the state. This can only be achieved through progressivism, which discards our past, tradition, knowledge, culture, and history, so that the state can guide a country towards perfection. The conservative recognizes that the traditional structures of the family, the community, and society are better equipped to nurture the individual than distant bureaucracies.
It is from the distinct understandings of the relationship between the individual, the community, and the state that disagreements over the economy, taxes, debt, spending, foreign policy, etc. between the Left and the Right originate.
So, there is a logic to the Right’s proposals and political programs. The Right has two main pillars: Burkean conservatism (or traditionalism) and classical liberalism. Both represent the natural state of every man and woman, because both address the natural needs for freedom, familial, and traditional and historical attachments, as described above. Meanwhile, the Left seeks to impose an abstract ideology onto real life. In communism, the Left’s most extreme form, these ideas are imposed by force.
All the thoughts, feelings, and inner states of a man or woman must be translated into a political offer, since politics is the environment where the individual addresses many of his problems. President Reagan provided this offer by adopting the fusionism proposed by William Buckley, Jr., founder of the iconic American conservative magazine, National Review, and its first editor, Frank Meyer. Fusionism is a philosophy that combines elements of classical liberalism and traditional conservatism. It seeks to merge the principles of limited government, individual liberty, and free markets with a respect for traditional values, social institutions, and cultural heritage.
Conservative traditionalists should note that the virtue or morality we hold dear is only truly good when it is freely chosen. Without the individual freedoms that classical liberalism defends, the values that Burkean conservatism defends whither. On the other hand, classical liberals must recognize that individualism unbridled and uninformed by moral values decays and becomes unstable. Without the acceptance of a moral foundation, freedom becomes anarchy and can destroy a society. When not balanced by each other, the pillars of Western conservatism (classical liberalism and traditionalism) taken in isolation create the conditions for authoritarianism.
The fusion between traditional conservatism and classical liberalism happened quite organically and produced excellent results in the United States and Great Britain in the 1980s, in Spain after 2011, in Madrid today, and in Florida with Governor Ron DeSantis. Albanians should learn from this. In order for conservatism to win, we need a synergistic and organic union of all the Right’s currents based on common values.
Conservative Policies
The Democratic Party must represent, defend, and promote the interests of all right-wing Albanians: from those whose property was forcibly taken by communists, to those who were politically persecuted, to descendants of true patriots of the pre-communist period, along with classical liberals, libertarians, and social conservatives. Our “Constitution of Values” does exactly that, laying out a map for how to create a society of opportunities and rule of law in which citizens can live freely and safely. We seek a society that respects the liberty and worthy representation of every Albanian citizen; a society that enables the economic and social development through supply-side economics and free markets. We seek to preserve the nation, the family, our cultural traditions, and religious diversity.
This requires a change in our economic system, from a net importer to a producer and exporter. Supply-side policies are needed to lower taxes for all, encourage local employment, manufacturing, investment, reduce government spending, drastically reduce debt, and decrease regulatory burdens and red tape. Industrialization and democracy go hand in hand.
Market economy, education, and democracy are closely linked because a free-market economy requires an educated population and the latter, in turn, requires participation in politics and decision-making. An individual with the appropriate economic means and a good education will naturally seek to protect his family, culture, and historical values, without forgetting to look towards the future.
This is a good way to create a majority that goes beyond the manipulation and deformation of the voter’s will and puts forward ideas and proposals that strengthen the country and its institutions.
I hope that the presentation of this document and its incorporation into the largest conservative party in Albania will mark the return of civilized discussion of ideas, proposals, and alternatives in the country.
