Executive director of ‘Albanian Policy Center’, Edith Harxhi said for Euronews Albania’s ‘Ilva Now’ that the fundamental factors behind the reason why the new political alternatives in Albania aren’t able to be successful are the prolonged post-communist transition that continues to this day combined with a lack of political culture.

While shifting the attention to Kosovo, where as she said, a new alternative like VV (Self-determination movement), came from outside of traditional politics, in Albania, said Harxhi, this hasn’t happened yet as the new parties have either been a part of or have had relations with the bigger parties.

“Albania still hasn’t come out of the post-communist transition, that is why it is still in a critical moment. Whereas in Kosovo, Albin Kurti wasn’t part of the system and won.

In Albania, we are going through a prolonged post-communist transition mixed with a tough capitalism, which has brought with it even more problems from a world engulfed with corruption and organized crime.

And lastly and most importantly, we are lacking political culture, and this includes the elites as well as the people. We are not going to make any big political changes. All the small parties have either come as a result of the dispersion of a big party or from disaccord from within the big parties,” added Harxhi.