From the SHISH scandal and the protest to the opposition crisis, Ben Andoni: We are in a period of cynical and contemptuous decadence

“We are in a period of cynical and contemptuous decadence.” This is how analyst and journalist Ben Andoni describes the political climate in Albania in the new episode of Apostrof.

Andoni touches on some of the most important developments of recent weeks, from the scandal at SHISH (the State Intelligence Service) and the weakness of institutions, to the debate over justice, the opposition crisis and the Flamingo protest. But, beyond the concrete events, the discussion focuses on a broader problem: what happens to a society when scandals repeat so often that they lose the power to surprise?

Referring to what he calls “enlightened cynicism”, Andoni argues that the public is briefly shaken by each new scandal, but very quickly returns to waiting for the next one. According to him, this climate is also fed by an opposition comfortable in its role, by institutions that exist formally but suffer from a lack of credibility, and by an ever-widening gap between the image Albania projects abroad and the way political reality is experienced inside the country.

The Flamingo protest, Andoni now sees as a movement that has lost part of its initial energy.