Prime Minister Rama’s address at today’s parliamentary session:

While all of us were waiting for you [Mr Berisha] to talk about the Bureau of Investigation, you talked about the political bureau. I didn’t get this sliding in the past, but actually you should have corrected yourself in this room, and not get a huge fine for your lies, as you suggested last time. A week ago, you said anything and everything from this pulpit, and asked to have delivered in parliament the agreed draft of the Bureau of Investigation. It is not our fault that you have turned your party into a kindergarten, and have appointed someone who is required to meet with the international community as if we was attending a parent-teacher meeting, and when he is left alone he just does not know what to say, because there are times he understands and others he does not. And the two of you together have made such a mess, and you swallowed up this week what you said last week, while now you are saying exactly what we have said. So, a more serious attitude would be highly appreciated in order to end this huge farce that you have orchestrated, and which eventually showed what big and fool liars you are.

Falsities have been said also with regard to the visit of the Secretary of State. His visit was scheduled to take place in the end of last year, in the framework of the visits the Secretary Kerry was paying in the region. His visit to Albania, which would have been his final stop, was cancelled due to the commitments of the Secretary of State in the negotiations with Iran.

Actually, contrary to what you have been propagandizing to Albanians in the most shameful way, that “he visited the whole of the region and boycotted the regime of oligarchs in Tirana”, his commitment was clear that he would pay his visit here in the most appropriate time, at the beginning of this year. You are very much aware that the Secretary of State is not coming to ask what you mentioned – but you hauled everybody into you maelstrom. In addition, no one but you can mention in the same speech Nexhmije Hoxha and John Kerry; nobody else in the world would do that. There is no problem between us and the United States. It is a continuation of a commitment that we honour and will continue to honour. Mr Kerry is coming here on a scheduled visit to Albania, also in the framework of contacts with the region and in view of the close relationship between the US and Albania, two countries that have already signed a strategic partnership document.

Moreover, don’t repeat once more the lie about the vote in the Security Council. You might lie about local issues, but do not lie about global issues. We cannot stop you from lying, for lying is your profession, but do not lie about global issues, and don’t involve partners and friends of our country in your world of lies. Lie about domestic affairs, but not about international relations, because it is more shameful than lying about domestic issues.

This is a ridiculous lie. We have not made any deviation in terms of vote and attitudes in relation to the US, and we have no intention to do it. We have never been given credit for this, and we have never said that we are better than you in this regard. This attitude reflects the attitude of the Albanian people, whether socialist or democrat, and there is no difference in this respect. What difference are you trying to make here? What you are getting at and why do you do this? Because you have no respect for your people, this is the problem! You think that Albanians are sheep, and you can take them wherever you want.

I believe that there is no reason to argue at this point. Lie as much as you want to hide the lack of capacity of your political son, to whom you have trusted the kindergarten. Take him with you in the teacher-parent meetings you have with partners, but please don’t leave him alone for he keeps embarrassing you as well. The shameful reputation you have created for yourself should be enough for you. Don’t take upon yourself also his shameful reputation.

***

You avoided the obligation to talk here about the National Bureau of Investigation, and about the great public deception you have caused together with the administrator of the kindergarten by totally opposing the truth. You’d better say why you have constantly deceived the Albanian people, and have denied a very simple fact, which is that you have 100% approved of the National Bureau draft that the Albanian government has to parliament.

The others should refrain from speaking, for they know nothing. But you Mrs Topalli know better than the others in whose hands has the Democratic Party remained. At least here don’t be a hypocrite, for your opinion on the kindergarten’s administrator is known worldwide. I am saying something you tell on a daily basis to whomever you meet.

An unbridled propaganda of lies and slander has been made about the National Bureau of Investigation. After we brought the draft which was, not 99%, but 100% approved together with you, now you come here and tell a lie even bigger, that this draft got me naked, which is a huge lie and slander, and puts in a difficult position neither us nor you – I am not concerned about you being in a difficult position – but our partners, in addition to creating a total confusion to the public.

Therefore, it costs you nothing to come here and say that you approved of this draft, but now you have changed your mind, and think like the Prime Minister and the government used to think, that despite the approval, this is part of the justice reform process. This is exactly what we said when you asked us to bring you the draft. And when we brought it, you said this is not it. This is 100% the approved draft, and I’m not the only one saying this. This is the draft agreed 100% with our partners who have assisted us with their expertise with regard to the idea of the National Bureau of Investigation, after the decision of the Constitutional Court. Therefore, don’t insist on this although it is not your fault, for partners are told one thing, you are told another thing and the public is told another one, and then back to you, and in the end it’s always your fault.

This is the truth, and the public, the media and all parties concerned should know that we have been faithful not only to the draft, but also to a request submitted by partners. We didn’t need you, for the National Bureau of Investigation passes by a simple majority, but it was a request of the partners to have involved also experts and representatives of the Democratic Party in the discussion of experts, due to the program for the financing of the State Police launched by the USA, and due to an agreement with the FBI, and we met their request for we have no problem with this. So we agreed to have you involved, and you agreed to the letter. I don’t have the habit of my predecessor who used to tell in public what he was told by one or another ambassador or foreign partner, and I won’t act like him, but I am telling you once again: you have become very ridiculous with this story, which has revealed a truth that everybody knows, but this time the truth has emerged in such a blatant manner about the fact that the leader of your party stays at home, while the chief needs to be led by the hand in the teacher-parents meeting, and this has created this confusion and this ridiculous situation. But how is it possible that after what you created, you still want to accuse us? How could you translate this as an expression of our or my dictatorial need to take control of the Bureau?

This is unacceptable. I wouldn’t have talked at all, hadn’t you been so fool to contradict yourself, by accusing and slandering us. If you said, here is the draft – which is true – but now we agree to continue the process as we used to say, we wouldn’t need to debate, but it is you who start the debate. You strike needlessly, and this is unacceptable. Therefore Sali, come here and tell the truth about the National Bureau of Investigation. Leave Nexhmije alone, for Andi Bushati has explained you very well everything concerning Nexhmije and all the others in the block; – he is an eyewitness of your efforts with wooden suitcase, he says. Come here and tell Albanians the truth. Don’t repeat the same mistake of telling lies, because I will have you confronted with written facts. Not that you are going to backtrack, for you never do that, but at least it will be proven once again that you have been telling nothing but lies.

***

You came here three times, and all the three times chased your tail, coming around in circles, and still couldn’t say what I asked very simply. You dealt with everything, except with the core of my question: Why do you keep lying about the National Bureau of Investigation?

You mentioned to all of us the Venice Commission brining the report. But when did the Venice Commission bring its own opinion? The Venice Commission brought its opinion long ago, before you sir came here last week and said, since you don’t have the courage to stand by your own words because you are a professional liar, and professional liars deal with the lie of the day and not with the lie they told the day before. You have accepted it publicly, I have no fault if people take me seriously. We do campaigns, and this is how campaigns work, etc. Your permanent campaign consists in lying on a daily basis. And then you pretend telling stories that show how correct you are. Last week you said here: “What does the Bureau of Investigation has, sirs? I’m going to tell you, absolutely! The law processed by the American experts corresponds completely, taking into account also the remarks of the Venice, with the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Albania. It does totally comply. Who is preventing it, according to you? There he is!” – meaning me. “The Chairman of the Democratic Party has asked the international community to bring it immediately in order to vote it.”

Therefore, last Thursday you confirmed the draft which we brought in immediately.

The truth is what I am saying, namely that the draft was 100% approved and confirmed as such by our partners, and it is the version that was brought in parliament. Such an insidious and low effort of yours to keep persevering in your lie is intolerable. Your chief, the director of the kindergarten has been saying on a daily basis: “Venice has nothing to do with it. What do we have to do with Venice? Bring in the draft so we can vote it today, because the fight against corruption cannot be delayed any longer.”

Meanwhile, I have said here that the draft is ready, and we believe that it should be reviewed by the Reform Commission. “Bring it here to vote”, said this one who is an ambulant lie, traveling back and forth from home to parliament, from parliament to the kindergarten, from the kindergarten to the meeting with parents. Ambulant lie! Were the lie to choose an image across the planet, this would be Sali. An unprecedented professional liar, who lies like those who know the songs by heart and sing them. He blabbers here for an hour, starting from the Stone Age, and doesn’t answer when asked why he contradicts himself.

 

I am saying once again that the draft voted by the government is the approved draft, and the path the draft followed is totally different from what the liar described. First, the US partners have supported the draft that we vote in this Parliament. They supported it and we have worked on it along with the American partners and FBI experts. After it was taken to the Constitutional Court, we restarted working with them. This is the truth! When we started working with them, it was them who asked us – you didn’t call them on the phone – and we absolutely agreed to have you involved as well, and this had nothing to do with the judicial reform process. Zero!

It is a total lie also in the first version that the Bureau depends on the Prime Minister. It is a total lie that in the version agreed the Bureau has anything to do with the Prime Minister. The approved version is that the Bureau is an investigative unit where the Attorney General has the veto for the director of investigation, and where investigation is conducted in cooperation with the prosecutor’s office. There is no invention here. In our view, it is a simple and very efficient structure. You have agreed. Okay, you have changed your mind and agreed with us, but why did you start attacking again with lies and slander, by opposing the truth? This is my question.

I hope that he who you take with you in the meeting with parents, will have the courage to tell the reform experts what you said here, tell it to the Secretary of State, provided that he has this courage, and you encourage him to tell the Secretary of State what you keeps saying here about the miserable consumption of your daily policy, when the Secretary comes here.

Just take back what you said about the draft. We don’t expect any kind of apology. What we want is this matter to end with the truth. We have not had any negotiations, any code at all. We closed the negotiation and we agreed. What a negotiation! We have agreed on this draft through partners. The code of silence and the code of speech are fairy tales. Had it been coded, you wouldn’t have come forth telling lies. Just observe the simple code of a successfully closed negotiations, thanks to the partners.

We brought the draft as we said and promised, a week before: we’ll bring the draft and give it to the commission. This is what we said. Who did hold you accountable, so that you feel the need to come here and tell us stories? I’m not talking about the other one who, despite what the records of the registry office show, apparently hasn’t reached the age to account give for his actions, considering what he has been doing.

***

I cannot agree with the fact that a professional old-age liar comes here and speaks Albanian according to the needs for his falsehood, and a whole party applauds at him. I cannot agree with this. The law processed by American experts fully complies with the decisions of the Constitutional Court, taking into account also the remarks of the Venice Commission.

What is your dignity and your relation with yourself and with the truth? If it were like the liar keeps saying, you wouldn’t say: “bring it here immediately to vote”. What does this mean?

I believe that all this was enough for people to understand what today was told just to refresh your memory, because they have seen and heard every day the SHQUP ghost going around and repeating with insistence that “Venice has nothing to do with that, just bring us the draft”. “The fight against corruption cannot be delayed any longer”, he said.

So at this point, I merely wanted to give you the opportunity to correct your scandalous attitude of liar in relation to a work agreed with partners. You refused to do it, but this is your business. The important things is that this time as well, those who want to understand and haven’t understood it yet, can understand your relation with the truth, with justice reform, with the fight against corruption and crime, and with all of them together.

As for the rest, I’m not going to dwell into the stories of the women of your youth, such as Nexhmije and Vito, for I have never met them. They were the women of your youth, who you have of course adored. Sometime you succeeded in meeting them, sometimes you didn’t; sometimes they opened their door to you, sometimes they didn’t, but it is for sure that you used to stay behind their doors. This is an evidence, and you cannot deny it. You had your needs, your ambitions as a young communist who wanted to grow up in the hierarchy of the Labour Party, give them everything, stick with your ear on their heart and hear whether it was beating for good or for bad, and fix their heart. And don’t deny that you have agreed to become their personal doctor. You didn’t succeed, apparently they had their reasons, but you cannot say that you didn’t agree. Meanwhile, I don’t get the connection between the wooden suitcase and your and our ancestors. I don’t understand why wood made you think of your great-grandfather. It is a metaphor to show with how much zeal, passion, love and veneration for the party, comrade Enver, comrade Hysni, comrade Vito, and comrade Nexhmije and all the others you have done everything. Just think that you asked Sulo Gradeci to take you on a boat trip on the lake, only to see from afar Nexhmije hanging the clothes on the clothesline.

You can say today how you used to talk to Nexhmije’s son against the Labour Party. You say this, but the fact is that nobody tells you this. You have it coming. You act like as if you were the hero who saved Albania from communism, while everyone knows your role, how you entered the movement, and how you ruined the Democratic Party. If I mention Vito to you, you say that you didn’t know she committed crimes, and you learnt everything later. That’s why you cried your eyes out when Vito Kapo died. You did all of this, and nobody want to remind you of them, but you ask for it because you act like you came here from the moon to save us from communism. What matters now is that you are once again a professional, incurable liar, and that the Democratic Party is an organization without a head, with a leader who stays at home, and with a president who sits there waiting to be taken by the hand to the meeting with parents.