Lulzim Basha has renewed his mandate as leader of the PD, winning the party elections on Saturday. Of the 59,000 PD members who votes, 91% elected Basha. The only other candidate in the race was former PD chairman Eduard Selami.
In a declaration after the elections, Basha stated:
The vote of 60 thousands Democrats confirmed that our cause for free elections, liberation of the country from corruption and drugs, the return of politics to the citizen, with dedication and determination, with honor and dignity, a debt that can only paid back by turning the Democratic Party into the direction of the fates of the country. […]
We Democrats truly lost the elections, but we didn’t lose faith in our party and in ourselves. We didn’t lose out values, we didn’t lose our dignity, we didn’t lose our power and courage, we didn’t lose our civilization, we didn’t lose our European spirit.
Selami claimed that the elections were unfair, but called upon the members of PD to engage themselves with the party in a “spirit of collaboration”:
Although the elections were unfair this was an important step forward and as you know I have established a concrete platform in consultations with Democrats from all over Albania, so that the coming elections we will do even better, and this will be the spirit of collaboration.
