Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks in Parliament:

This Assembly should have been adopting a cross-party consensual resolution on the eve of the debate among the EU member states on whether to open or not the EU membership negotiations with Albania.

This Assembly should have been today united behind unanimous opinion of all political forces to draw the attention of all the member states of the European Union on behalf of the Albanian people and the Albanian nation.

This Assembly should have been today addressing via a resolution to all EU member states to demand nothing more and nothing less but recognition of Albania’s merits in delivering the tough conditions and priorities and adoption of the European Commission’s unconditional recommendation to open the accession talks.

But unfortunately and not accidentally, this Assembly is forced today to deal with a brutal, transgressive, irresponsible and intolerable act by Ilir Meta.

I often wonder, what Ilir Meta wants more from Albania?

Whom else has Albania made more favours rather than this man, who under the age of 50, like nobody else in history, has been serving as Prime Minister, Parliament Speaker and President of the Republic?

Who else more than Ilir Meta has been absolved and forgiven for the divisions, tricks, scandals and has been granted the opportunity to be reborn as repentant and mature man?

Who else rather than Ilir Meta should wonder what he can do to redeem and pay back, although little, the huge of sea of debts he owes to Albania and the Albanian citizens?

These are of course rhetoric questions.

Ilir Meta is one-of-a-kind in the history of Albanian state with to whom Albania has been so generous. As such, these rhetorical questions lead us to the answer as to the why of Ilir Meta’s most recent derangement. This is because Ilri Meta, like nobody else, has been heavily indulged and used to lure his God, deride and laugh at his luck, kick His kindness be seeking to play here and there the role of the protagonist on a stage he doesn’t belong, as he is never satisfied at his granted role and is always eager for more.

Not merely the President of the Republic, but even he was to be proclaimed the King of Albania and the whole Albanian-speaking territories, Ilir Meta would again not feel well, would not play fair, would not stop tempting fate with his hopeless dissatisfaction, his unexplainable insatiable and greediness and inconsolable insomnia.

We are here today the witnesses of yet another mischievous, worthless, unacceptable and harmful misdeed of the President of the Republic.

What on earth is the reason for the President of the Republic to join forces with the notorious and long-time arsonist of the Republic, Sali Berisha, in a desperate bid of the latter to set Albania on fire and plunge it into chaos again?

 

What on earth would be the reason for the President of the Republic to commit the gravest and most scandalous violation of the Constitution by cancelling his signature through his own signature?

What on earth would be the reason for the President of Albania to turn into a ridiculous and foolish inventor of inexistent reasons as an excuse for a stupid action that will go down as a unique example in the history of the parliamentary republics on our planet?

There is only one reason which explains everything, and that is Ilir Meta.

This whole thing can be summed up in these two words only, Ilir and Meta. It is worthless to seek reasons behind this anti-constitutional nonsense but these two words. However, today we owe an explanation to Albania and our international friends and partners how things reached the boiling point in the caldron of our political life.

Why the President overreached his powers in violation the constitution and let fly with a stray bullet to kill elections in the midst of election campaign. Why for the God’s sake we didn’t take advantage of this anti-constitutional madness to stop campaigning and wait in vain for the day when Sali’s and Ilir’s parties make up their mind for a new election date?

Let’s start with the latter since we can therefore better and easier redeem the first. I am starting from myself.

Since tremendous efforts are being made from tribune to tribune, from a TV channel to other channels and countless web news portals to blame me for elections without main rivals and follow the logic of what is going on, which is interpreted as the consequence of stubbornness, authoritarianism, craziness going as far as an effort to incite a civil conflict over Albania and I am starting with a question addressed to all of those wishing to reason about this both clear and confusing situation, this situation that is related to the interest of a bunch of people, inextricably linked with the national interest of the Republic, both understandable and absurd: What on earth is my narrow personal and political interest behind the unshakable conviction that time is not ripe for compromise but for campaign and elections on June 30? We are heading to local elections. The SP governs 75 percent of the territory on national scale and manages the majority of main municipalities. There is a solid parliamentary majority and unshakable support for the government and me.

The government is grappling with 1001 issues that need to be addressed, the economy is now in peril and tourism is under threat and all these costs shake the confidence of investors. Under these conditions, calming the heated situation seems like an easy thing to do rather than a strong headache as is the advancement in this abnormal situation towards June 30. I see no close pragmatic interest whatsoever in preventing the efforts from calming this situation and no impediment to the path of government if elections are postponed even for an indefinite period.

On the contrary, I should have been delighted to accept such a thing for me in person, for the sake of my convenience and my post, but also for the sake of our govt. I should have been the first to leap into the air with joy after the cancellation of elections and wash my hands of the election process saying: Well done, I do absolutely agree with that. And who cares that we launched the election campaign based on the President’s decree and we are now spared of a headache of holding the elections, giving up the campaign and decide for the election to happen when everybody agrees on. Or quite the opposite. I would have blamed Ilir for the brutal disruption of the election campaign by lashing out at the President and finding an excuse in front of the Albanian citizens, saying the election date disappeared from the horizon and behave like a wise and innocent man in a mad political game.

So, frankly saying, in order to go to the bottom of this absurdity, if I really was the one I appear to be in the cup of coffee of the fortune-teller, or on the old man’s digital device, I and the Socialist Party would have been spared of other elections, because this precedent-turned stupidity would provide us in the future with the opportunity to say “we don’t want the local elections to happen, even we don’t want the general elections to happen either, because based on reliable resources we have been informed that a nuclear attack on Albania is imminent.”

Therefore, since no elections are going to be held if one of the parties is not willing to participate in, then no elections will ever be held in the country. But, the constitution and law in other country work based on the principle of equality before to the law. That’s why such mental adventures should not translate into political actions that would impose on a whole nation just for the sake of a party. A political group protests today, another group may protest in the future and such Albania-like situations turn the country into a stage where the dices are rolled just like in Dostoevsky’s the Gambler.

One might say – and unfortunately many people who take over the responsibility to save Albania by offering their political and media recipes, just like the 1001 wrongdoings of Oliver Twist say it – that we haven’t been respecting the constitution that much before.

Let’s cut then to the chase, just like we have always done over the past 30 years, opening once again a way out by shunning the constitution and the law just to ease tension and tense situation, reconcile and calm the hotheads and spare Albania of a civil conflict and murder of innocent people or another ominous situation of the year ’97.

Another ’97? But why?

What has happened to anything like ’97, which we now should fear and run away?

Which pyramid schemes are collapsing and whose savings are being lost? In which cities the signs of a popular uprising are being shown as a reaction to the grave problem the citizens went through back in 1997 and which arms depots NATO will open the doors to arm Albanians against each other?

Who is really deeply concerned as to call protest of the imaginary people of the DP-run municipalities and the municipal entities along with masked youth groups, who throw Molotov cocktails and fireworks at the government building?

These are of course rhetoric questions, but before highlighting the real problem that has troubled and scared the opposition that has taken to the streets in their most despaired bid in the complex history of the past 30 years to cause trouble to entire Albania, let me put it clear: nothing can prevent us from heading to June 30 elections.

So we feel compelled to come to terms with the wrong, fatal choice of our rivals to leave the election campaign with one candidate in the overwhelming part of the municipalities across the country.

Why us, if we were to withdraw from the process citing all these seemingly understandable reasons when listed to provide arguments over the election date postponement, should assume the responsibility of accepting the worst possible evil and thus undermining the state, the basis of the rules of democratic coexistence and our developing democracy itself.

By moving ahead with the June 30 election process while suffering this headache following the main opposition’s walk out of the Parliament and the elections themselves we certainly can’t safeguard the pluralism diversity in the elections outcome. Most likely, these elections outcome will turn out to be an almost 100% purple electoral map, if no surprises happen here and there, this would be not because we are not willing to guarantee the full diversity of pluralism, neither because we do not like to have a race in any municipality, nor because we are finalizing a totalitarian plan to destroy pluralism. This is not our plan, no!

This is their plan and we can’t help but accept the reality by not becoming entrapped in the fatal short-sightedness in thinking that sticking to the process would make us equally complicit with them because of the monochrome product of these elections without rivals. No at all.

Quite the contrary. We are merely the victims of our main rivals’ free choice to abandon the race and the undeniable downside of these elections is not because of us, but because of those who want to kill election process and turn their unavoidable defeat into a victory over Albania that expects to open the accession negotiations with the European Union.

Ilir Meta’s act is a clear expression of fear, not only from elections, but, first and foremost, from the justice.

We are condemned to take over the cost they have created in order to prevent this cost from being transferred to Albania in the coming years.

Holding the June 30 elections without the opposition is the least bad thing that can happen to Albania, while election postponement just because they are not taking part would the worst, last-effecting thing to happen to Albania. Why? Because for the sake of avoiding elections, we would justify the fact that for years to come the elections would no longer be the citizens’ right to express opinion and the parties’ obligation to go through the citizens’ judgement, but elections will be merely considered a party’s right when to hold elections and the citizens’ obligation to subject to the parties’ whims.

What is happening now is actually not happening for the first time in our troubled history of democratic developments. This is indeed the second episode of a film that started two years ago. We do all remember when the very same people, ked by the very same arsonist of these 30 years of democracy Sali Berisha, and lead by the same loafer and windbag, Lulzim Basha, walked out of parliament in order to evade voting on the vetting and camped themselves inside a plastic bunker right under my office, singing same old tune and issuing same threat to boycott the elections, not to dialogue with the Prime Minister and to prevent elections from happening.

We all remember how much I begged Lulzim Basha for dialogue, agreement, understanding and a last-minute accord was reached. He was granted everything he asked for on the condition to go out of the plastic bunker and return to parliament in order to vote in the vetting law, not to contest the election result and not to denigrate Albania, their own country, when speaking in a foreign language.

I don’t know whether everyone still remember that under that agreement we postponed the general elections for a week only, within the deadline the constitution allows the President of the Republic, based on the Electoral Code of the Republic. Back then too, they asked for the elections delay beyond the constitutional deadline and our international friends who tried to facilitate dialogue also agreed on that.

But I flatly rejected the idea and firmly stick to my position, because I was convinced, just like I am still convinced today, that when politicians allow such violations on behalf of understanding among them, the ones to lose are the people of this country, democracy, the rule of law and such violations become a norm.

It is as simple as that. Here we are again two years later. If I were to accept that violation two years ago, then repeating such violation today and election postponement at the whims of a political party would be undisputable and undeniable right of every political force to decide against the right of the sovereign people to vote in elections within the deadline as stipulated by the constitution and the electoral code. The politicians are not above the constitution, the law and the state. If we really want to build a state and the rule of law on this country, it is never possible – and as long as I will be here – I will never accept those politicians and their parties to turn the obligation of whomsoever to be elected by the people into their right to decide when the people can and cannot elect them. Meanwhile, the President of the Republic, not only he cannot deny the people to vote in elections within the constitutional deadlines, but has no right of whatsoever to decide about anything but what the constitution and the electoral code stipulate.

Two years ago, we reached an accord with Lulzim Basha and both agreed to delay general elections by a week only. Bujar Nishani, Ilir Meta’s predecessor in the President’s office, demanded a written and signed accord document in order to postpone elections by a week and the postponement was approved only after the document was forwarded to the then President. This is the truth we should tell even when incongruous.

Bujar Nishani didn’t read the constitution according to his desires or his party’s needs, though sometimes backed his party by issuing completely biased and sometimes scandalous statements. However, he never made constitution and his signature available to the political agenda of that party.

It took for Ilir Meta to become President to praise today Bujar Nishani, the most partisan and most mediocre President this country has ever had, vis-à-vis the constitutional and legal basis of his decrees.

It was necessary for Ilir Meta to assume the office of the President in order for the book of world history to enrich with the surprising notion of “presidential decree undoing’.

So it is me to sign today, and undo my signing a day later. It took for Ilir Meta to become President so that the history of world philosophy come across a startling philosophic discovery for the mankind, that of consensus among parties but reached by a single man in line with the parties’ insistence not to agree with each other.

This is really to ignore history, democracy and philosophy by taking the absurdity up just like as if by snatching in weightlifting, taking human logic and legal culture beyond any limit set to date on the homeland’s and mankind’s consensus. So we return to the question I made at the beginning.

Why on earth Ilir Meta made this terrifically unconstitutional and non-logical intervention? Such a move is not just a threat to the Parliamentary Republic, but also a threat to the human logic. It is not the Parliamentary Republic alone, but the human logic is being assaulted too. Right amidst the election process, with the election campaign in full swing, starting exactly on the day when the government of the Unites States, through an extremely unusual statement, publicly condemned violence, the election boycott, the warnings against the election prevention by pointing a finger to two persons, namely Lulzim Basha and Monika Kryemadhi as the two individuals to be held responsible for whatever would take place during the June 8 protest and on. Some might think he intervened with his decree just to save the face of Lulzim Basha’s and Monika Kryemadhi’s imaginary revolution, since, as the shrunk crowd of protesters along the boulevard, the revolution was waning and the influx of water entities at the municipalities run by DP mayors was fizzling out.

Others might think that Ilir Meta undid his signing in a bid to escalate the situation further through a single assault that was stronger than whole pile of stones, fireworks, firecrackers and Molotov cocktails combined thrown by Lulzim Basha during the opposition’ revolutionary nights.

Both can be best true.

It could even be true even in this case as Jacques Lacan says: “if a man who thinks he is a king is mad, a king who thinks he is a king is no less so.” The bare truth emerging from this surprising nonsense act is that Meta’s action is a bolt from the blue, yet a spectacular step as part of a political plan to take the country’s democratic life hostage and undermine the path towards opening the EU accession negotiations. Whoever really thinks that in their mental adventure, which certainly features many elements just like a combination between Cajupi’s Thessaloniki’s Club and the Chekhov’s Ward 6, if the two inspirers and orchestrators of this plan, namely Sali Berisha and Ilir Meta, really think they would oust me through Lulzim’s Molotov bombs and curses spelled by Monika, they are completely wrong.

These two are the instruments in the hands of the first two and they believe they can seize power through use of firecrackers and sorcery while the two masters of riots and intrigues have a longer target range. I am the that seems to be the head that needs to be offered to the crowd to inspire and make it angry while gathering along the boulevard, the illusion the artist and the fortune-teller need to be motivated and work hard in their blind attempt.

I am not the prey of this political hunt, but Albania which should be stopped before it reaches the EU accession negotiations threshold and immediately open the first two main chapters that happen to be the chapters on justice. By opening the chapters on judiciary, Albania should demonstrate to the EU that the justice system reform is not just an architectural model with the Constitution’s letters and new legislation on the new justice system, is not merely a mechanism of cleaning the country’s justice system of corrupt judges and prosecutors, but a rule of law with judges and prosecutors caught red-handed by the vetting, and corrupt and untouchable politicians of past 30 years are kneeled down from punishable power of the justice finally liberated of their claws.

the plan is clear and clever enough to ensure political survival of those who have masterminded and are implementing it by mercilessly attacking me, not us that are unwavering supporters of the justice reform, but Albania itself and Albanians’ hopes, including those who follow those villains, completely wrongly thinking they are toppling the government, while Lulzim and Monika would punish crime, eradicate corruption and put an end to injustice against which they claim to have embarked on an irreversible fight. release of intercepted phone conversation by the German tabloid was part of the plan after these wiretaps were being kept by a notorious and renowned servant of Sali in the Serious Crimes Prosecution Office. Lulzim and Monika have taken over the endeavour to save the country with their ‘snow-white clean hands’. On the other hand, Meta and Berisha are seeking to take country out of the democratic process. It is their right to seek a different government in Albania, but they are seeking to make Albania thing about the nightmare of 1997 instead of an Albania fighting to take the train of the year 2025.

Ilir Meta and Sali Berisha indeed are not seeking to postpone election, but trigger chaos in the country’s institutional life and aim at dismantling the state.  They are seeking to derail the democratic process, just like they took the opposition out of parliament. They are seeking at any cost to fish in troubled waters by luring desperate and discontent people who are in their absolute right to seek the government’s departure, to call and hope for my resignation as soon as possible and they are in their own right to dream about Albania being governed differently by other individuals and political parties.

This is why, you honourable lawmakers and dear fellow citizens wherever you are, Ilir Meta’s decree is yet another very strong reason to hold the June 30 elections and frontally face these four adventurers who are seeking to stop this country’s tremendous state-building efforts.

Do you want to imagine how Albania would be if government by them? Just look at them.

Do you want Albania to resemble those four? I don’t think so.

We should keep moving forward, not merely to defend the local elections, which are just the hostage to be released in exchange of a ransom, that is to negotiate a consensual funeral of justice, but to defend Albania in order to defend the country, which wouldn’t be built if it was for politicians like them.

They are deeply unsettled and face a huge problem, just like this their adventure against Albania, and are now seeking to turn their own problem into a problem of all Albanians, who feel exhausted and are disgusted that these politicians are untouchable, who afford themselves to do everything and escape unscathed. They are also rightly and increasingly discontent at our mistakes and delays in the government.

But no. Never. No way. I will never give up, and neither as Prime Minister, nor as a common citizen on this country in the future will I accept as a fatality the mischief, ignorance, and inherited dirty deals by surrendering and giving up in the face of evil that has consumed this country like a cancer in its body over years and countless decades. If I was not to believe in Albania, if I was not to believe in the rights of our children, the children of Socialists and Democrats and anyone else, that they will inherit a better country than we inherited from those who treated Albania as their plunder, I would grant them not a single second to become the target of their inquisitive mud that accompanies me at every step.

I have voted Ilir Meta as President of the Republic of Albania. Everyone else in this hall did the same when Ilir Meta was voted in as President. Many have criticized me via social media for choosing him as President and many others have cursed me anytime Ilir Meta engages in his wrongdoings.

I do not regret. I would do the same thing if we could turn back time.

I would do so for many reasons I won’t mention today. However, this is the case to remind everyone that Ilir Meta was voted in as President of the Republic with his votes and our votes could have hindered his election, yet were not sufficient to vote in another candidate. It is good for everyone to recall this fact.

Had I ever imagined, when we voted him in, that Ilir Meta would again turn his typical and cyclical loss of self-control into a systematic tool to confuse our constitutional system and lead a plan masterminded and orchestrated together with Sali just to harm Albania? No. This is something I had never imagined.

This has gone beyond any imaginable reasoning and therefore it cannot be tolerated. Ilir Meta has lost the right to stay in the office of the President with our consent. Albania is a Parliamentary Republic, and the President of this Republic is the guarantor of national unity, not the subjective reader of the Constitution in view of the assaults against our parliamentary Republic and political goals of anyone. A President who seeks to argue his anti-constitutional gaffe just like the cancellation of elections at the height of the election campaign is however an individual one should feel pity for him.

Sincerely expressing my sympathy for him as a man, friend, adversary and ally, as someone who has not only done bad things but has also given positive contributions to his long political life, I wish him heartily to read calmly the resolution this Assembly will adopt today, if he still suffers hearing impairment conditions and won’t be able to clearly understand the words that are being said about him at this Assembly today.

Thank you very much!