Prime Minister Edi Rama’s press statement following Parliament session:
-Mr. Rama, no presidential candidates were endorsed in the two rounds of voting. Are you willing to elect a candidate based on consensus with the opposition in the third round?
Prime Minister Rama: They say it takes two to tango. It means we can’t dance tango alone. We lack partners.
-Mr. Prime Minister, earlier today Greece’s Foreign Minister threatened that if Albania makes any attempts to raise issues of property rights or human rights of the Cham community in Greece, then Athens would impose its veto on Albania’s EU integration. Did you have the opportunity to discuss the matter with the Foreign Minister?
PM Rama: I don’t want to issue statements that would feed the media, but I would just like to say that we are currently experiencing an advanced stage of dialogue, cooperation and understanding with our neighbours and I am confident we will succeed in delivering on our goal to take this relationship to a whole new level by treating with due mutual respect all the pending issues.
-Mr. Rama, have you already made up your mind who would you vote for as the country’s next President?
PM Rama: We would have certainly announced the name of the next President if we were to have made such a decision and we would have been waiting here to vote for him or her. So, we have decided nothing yet. We have been following the process patiently while coming across all sorts of funny things, but it is increasingly clear that we lack partners.
-Mr. Rama, why don’t you cooperate with the opposition to propose a candidate also backed by the Socialist lawmakers based on political consensus?
PM Rama: What do you mean?
-Making the process more credible, because the opposition distrusts your sincerity in this process.
PM Rama: Politics is interaction, politics is dialogue and politics is a chess game and stating that I don’t trust you and therefore I would abandon the process, this is not politics.
I have repeatedly illustrated various examples when we (Socialists) were in opposition. Two elections took place when I headed the Socialist Party in opposition; one the election of the President when we lacked the majority to elect one, but we still had enough votes to force the then ruling majority to sit at table of dialogue, because the President had to be elected with an overwhelming majority of 84 votes in all five rounds of voting, and another election process when we lacked the majority of votes, but today’s system was into force, and we again sit at the table of talks, proposed our options although no agreement was reached and the then parliamentary majority elected their handpicked President and that was it. But we were not the ones to be defeated in that process. The President’s office or the institution of the President was defeated instead. So the opposition is not there to dictate its will, but make its efforts just like we did when in opposition. We can’t force them to do their part.
-Mr. Rama, would you stick to your statement that Ilir Meta will join the opposition after July 25, as he has already declared, and that you will face two political opponents?
PM Rama: He has never been anything else but part of the opposition.
-With just a few days to go, would you reveal the name of the new President of the Republic, although you claim that no candidates have been named?
PM Rama: Your voice sounds quite familiar, although I can’t clearly see you because of the dim light. However, your question is surprisingly correct. What we will do is that we will wait for the third round of voting and if no candidates are endorsed, we will convene and discuss concrete terms with the Socialist Party representatives within the party’s chairmanship and we will then address to the parliamentary group and a candidate will then be voted in Parliament. We will definitely not leave the country without a President. This is unquestionable.
-Will you consider the candidates in closed envelopes proposed by the Socialist MPs?
PM Rama: Good news is that Ambrozia is re-educated.
