Are they friends or enemies? Most likely it is the first and not the second, but the candidacy of a semi-unknown doctor almost put them in deep crisis. Berisha and Meta exchanged messages mixed with honey and wormwood together, after the head of state urgently signed the decree of dismissal of Bajram Begaj from the post of Chief of Staff, which paved the way for the official appointment of the new president in the Assembly.
Only in a banana republic of South America are decrees signed in this way, Berisha said after learning about Ilir Meta's action. A comment that would not have surprised anyone if it was used against Rama, but that left many open-mouthed after it was used against the man who is today and tomorrow the only hope for the Albanian opposition and Berisha himself.
For his part, Ilir Meta was not at all worried about the anger of his ally. Even with the mouth of his wife Kryemadhi invited Berisha to address the Constitutional Court for the annulment of the procedure. The doctor can indeed be caught unawares as happened with the decree from Istanbul, but he is neither foolish nor ignorant.
He is clear that an appeal of the Begaj decree to the Constitutional Court would be placed at the same time against the government, the President and the internationals who hastened to greet Begaj's election. Still further, by suing Meta (and not Rama) because of Bajram Begaj, Sali Berisha could push the relationship with Ilir Meta beyond the allowed point. An essential relationship for the present and the future of Berisha and his re-established party.
It has not been the case that the former prime minister is spending the hours that followed, minimizing the quarrel with the president and sending love messages to him at a distance. Although Meta himself is indifferent to this tearing up of the Doctor, he even finds time to go to the American embassy for a friendly conversation with the "governor" Kim.
It is unlikely that the rift between Meta and Berisha, created by the vote of the new President, will be irreversible and irreparable. Everything speaks of a spring crisis between two early "lovers", who share similar interests for a long time that are not remembered. The Berisha-Meta duo is the strongest, longest-lived and most solid alliance that Albanian politics has produced since 1991. Not infrequently in strained relations between them, they have nevertheless united visible and invisible threads of current or even long-term interests. .
It was no coincidence that the only leftist leader in the last 30 years who managed to form an unequivocally post-election ruling coalition within a few hours with Sali Berisha, was Ilir Meta. Although they were swearing and shouting where it is not said between them during the campaign (Sali Gërdeci and Ilir floriri)!
This relationship is expected to remain so until 2025, when both, Meta and Berisha, know that in front of Rama have a chance to win only if they are not divided and hostile. Otherwise, the current Prime Minister no longer has any obstacles towards the fourth term.
The episode of Begaj's election, more than a crisis of relations between Berisha and Meta, is the consequence of a candidacy that found Sali Berisha unprepared. The other, with his familiar political scent, did not hesitate for a moment to sit in the President's office the chief of staff he had chosen and decorated with his own hand. Everyone won this event except Berisha, but the future of the opposition belongs again to the most surprising duo, who are destined to unload all the ammunition left in their pockets against this government in the next three years. The quarrel for Begaj was a summer rain like the one that fell these hours. A hot and dry summer awaits us.