From the Right Side to the Wrong Side in Four Months

Staring at the abyss from the Wrong Side

I just wrapped my first and probably last OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission (EOM) for Albania’s parliamentary election on 12 May. I was a Short Term Observer (STO) in the far north, hard against the Montenegrin border in the ancient city of Shköder (Scutari). It was at times fun and interesting, other times tedious and annoying (as all EOMs can be). Overall it was great. It checked all the boxes I set for it, most importantly getting me out of my own head and back into the professional environment I’ve been moving in for more than 20 years.

It’s probably my last EOM. This is not because of a bad experience with the OSCE/ODIHR Mission; indeed quite the opposite. It was well-run, productive and fair, as the Missions typically are. I met dozens of interesting, active people from all over Europe and the US. It’s probably my last mission because it is not clear that the US will continue funding its share of observers (about 15 out of 200 or STOs on this mission) on future EOMs. Knowing what we all know, I’m going to assume this is probably the end of the road for American participation.

This is how far Shköder, located on the Buna River, is from various other places

Here’s the OSCE/ODIHR preliminary statement. It comports with my observations. I don’t have anything to add to it. This post is not about Albania, though. It’s about the US.

For most of the mission, I was thrilled to be working again with smart professionals from all over Europe, enjoying Albanian hospitality and culture and figuring out how a new-to-me political system works. After spending several months in the Piedmontese mountains trying to Deal With It All, I’d gone a bit feral. It felt good to get a haircut, clean the dirt from under my nails and remember how to conduct myself in situations that don’t involve slugs. It was my first professional outing since January’s Extinction Level Event. I needed to get my sea legs, but it all came back.

View from the Rozafa Castle in Shködra, Albania, in the north of the country, bordering Montenegro

The rest of the time, I was incandescent with rage. European colleagues commented how surprised they were to see Americans at all. Everyone wanted to know “is it really that bad?” Yes, yes, I assured them, it is that bad. In fact, it’s probably worse. That the US is abandoning its role in democracy support activities overnight and for no good reason defies rational explanation. I often found it hard to talk about it at all, especially with Americans who have been living through it as well. The words coming out of my mouth sounded like those of a crazy person.

It’s been only four months. The effects of USAID’s destruction have trickled down in predictable ways. There were few, if any, citizen observers on Election Day which is unusual in a developing democracy like Albania’s. The party observers seemed untrained and unclear on their role.

Domestic election observation builds the capacity of NGOs to expand beyond elections into advocacy. It trains them to organize strategically and technically complex programs. They learn how to be effective stakeholders, especially in closing spaces. They learn how their own system works and how to protect it from malign influence. Helping citizens take ownership of their own elections is one area where US support has been essential for decades. The importance of this role has received bipartisan agreement. Its value has not been a topic of debate.

The US is no longer in this business. I am furious about it. Also, scared.

No one will argue that, historically, the US can be counted on to side with democrats over corrupt authoritarians. But really, for the last 35 years, US support for democratic development in the European states that shrugged off Russian colonialism has been pretty solid for a simple reason: The US is stronger when its allies are not corrupt Russia-aligned kleptocracies. The US has supported the Transatlantic Alliance because it makes us safer against geopolitical threats. Threats like Russia, which invaded and is occupying a European country and is waging hybrid warfare against NATO members

The defunct Shköder train station which now serves as a polling place. Apparently even during communist time the trains didn’t really run.

To be clear, Albania doesn’t fit neatly into the current framework that helps us understand dynamics in Serbia, Hungary or Slovakia where Russia-aligned leadership is undermining European institutions from within, with explicit or implicit Trump/MAGA support. Or in Ukraine, which Trump is pressuring to hold elections in defiance of its constitution and to negotiate with Russia, the aggressor. The US is unambiguously on the wrong side in these places. It’s not as clear in Albania, however, which side is the right side and which is the wrong. Both are pro-EU and pro-American. What is clear, however, is that MAGA interests align with the interests of corrupt political parties and their leaders.

During the STO pre-briefing, I asked the analysts if they were tracking malign election influence operations, if they had identified any and if so, was it domestic sourced or external. I knew the answer to this question. I wanted to see what their answer was. The answer given was “not much.”

Actually, the answer is it’s US. We’re the source! Paul Manafort, Trump’s 2016 campaign chair who went to jail for tax and bank fraud and was accused of involvement in Russia’s 2016 election interference efforts, and Chris LaCivita, Trump’s 2024 manager, were hired by the opposition Democratic Party of Albania to Make Albania Grandiose Again. While no Albanian party has cornered the corruption market, the Democratic Party’s leader, Sali Berisha, was under house arrest until late last year and still cannot enter the US due to corruption charges leveled by the Biden administration and the UK, charges designed to fight global kleptocracy. MAGA was almost certainly being paid to help reverse this “injustice.”

US political consultants have been known, from time to time, to work for foreign campaigns in exchange for bags of cash of mysterious provenance. It’s also not like the MAGAs were trying to defeat a national leader who has led a heroic fight against corruption. But usually, American consultants are brought in to try to quietly create a thin democratic veneer over an unseemly candidate (see: Manafort’s skillful rebranding of Viktor Yanukovich in Ukraine). Typically, the US president’s henchmen do not openly, gleefully claim that corrupt allies are good for the US and share US values. That’s more commonly kept on the down-low.

LaCivita has called Berisha “a true friend of the United States.” And he has drawn parallels between Trump and Berisha, casting both as having been “unfairly prosecuted and persecuted by a government that has no regard for Democracy.”

LaCivita has acknowledged Berisha’s decision to promote his involvement is different from other foreign clients who prefer more discretion.

“That’s one place where you know, America meddling in their elections is encouraged, right? Everywhere else, not so much,” LaCivita said in a conversation with journalists posing as potential clients that was published by The Guardian.

—Trump Ex-aides are working to make Albania Grandiose Again

There was little if any USAID-funded political party or elections support in place to strengthen Albania’s fragile democratic processes and provide even a feeble counterbalance to MAGA in this election. This is surely by design. But, in what seems to be another defeat for MAGA international, they got their assess handed to them (this was not, to be clear, an obvious victory for anti-corruption, anti-populist forces. Albania is a weird place).

Having to confront the idea that the US will be regularly taking the wrong side against our European allies and against Eastern Europe’s democratic development, has been the hardest intellectual exercise I’ve engaged in since January. Who or what is going to provide the counterbalance to MAGA and its allies in weak democracies that struggle with corruption? Who is going to say, “democratic backsliding is bad, actually?” and “America is safer when its allies are democracies?”

I don’t want to be on the wrong side. It looks terrifying from here.