Last night the Head of the Democratic Party Lulzim Basha talked about the opposition strategy toward the Rama government and the extralegal situation in the country. He was a guest on journalist Artur Zheji’s political talk show.
Here are some of Mr. Basha’s main statements:
On the PD and its course
The Balkans have known many a leader coming with poetries in hands to free their people, and who have then trod on their throat. There is no salvation out of poetry. Politics should follow reason, rational thinking, and solutions. This is how it works in Europe.
I represent a new model for Albania, but not a new one at all for Europe – the European model. I am decided to raise the Albanians’ awareness that the way out of this dire situation is the European way. We have tried other ways and here is where we’ve ended up.
There is no one in Europe who comes as a hero and leaves in bloodshed. There are politicians who come with a platform and leave without much ado. In case you are looking for a Spartacus in me, a liberator, who would come like this one [PM Rama] and steal even the last cents, sitting from dusk till down in the company of criminals, you won’t find that person in me.
On the lack of approval for General Sander Lleshaj
First and foremost, this is an institutional issue that relates a particular institution – the Constitutional Court, which rules on the interpretation of the Constitution, and defines Prime Minister’s and President’s actions. What has been revealed during this one-week-long episode is the institutional dimension of the crises that Albanians are going through, and this is the constitutional crisis.
A country with no Constitutional Court is a country governed under unlawful circumstances.
The dismembering of the Constitutional Court means that its power is absorbed by a handful of people, and we are witnessing that on a daily basis, starting from the law on the National Theater, to the protest of citizens at Tirana’s outer ring road.
On the May 17 Agreement
The May 17 agreement aimed at providing free and fair elections.
In the circumstances we found ourselves after the 90-day-long protest, we were not able to remove Rama as a prime minister, thus we went for a solution that would avoid a civil conflict and would provide free and fair elections.
Why do I consider it a failed agreement? Because its only aim of providing free and fair elections did not come true.
We had massive vote buying, which compelled OSCE/ODIHR to list this as the number one problem in their final report, of all issues with elections in Albania.
