From: Elvis Ballauri
Monika Kryemadhi Asks for Forgiveness, but Can We Believe Her?

Monika Kryemadhi, the recently elected leader of the Socialist Movement for Integration (LSI), accepted and admitted to all the issues of the Meta-Rama government.

During the Electoral Convention, when Kryemadhi was elected head of LSI, she “asked forgiveness” from the party’s supporters, because she didn’t speak up when things weren’t going right in the past years:

Forgive me for leading the country together with Edi Rama. We didn’t speak openly and clearly when Albanians were being misgoverned by Edi Rama.

It is our fault that we didn’t strongly fight against the drug plantations that spread all over Albania, we didn’t speak up loud enough when Albania was being sold off with concessions. We should have prevented this from happening and we should have considered extreme preventative measures, like boycotting the Parliament.

We kept silent when Edi Rama used oligarchs’ money to keep quiet the media that condemn crime and corruption.

We didn’t stand up for the higher education reform. We shut our eyes and ears when hundreds of Albanians that couldn’t pay their electricity bills were stopped by police, while oligarchs still owe millions. Today, we are responsible for these. It isn’t a shame to accept mistakes, shame lies with those who destroyed Albania.”

When talking about all these mistakes, Kyemadhi used as an apology “the respect for the agreement reached with the Socialist Party.”

We did this because we made a promise to govern together with the Socialists.

At the end, Monika Kryemadhi promised that the LSI would be the biggest opposition party in the future Parliament:

Edi Rama can use the drug money to buy the current opposition, it can buy few internationals, too. But all the crime money in the world, won’t buy LSI’s silence.

In previous interviews, Kryemadhi and the former head Ilir Meta have once again confirmed that LSI was faithful to the agreement with PS, deeming this a party’s value. So, it comes naturally to ask some questions:

  • Who should the party be faithful to: its close self-interests and that of other allied parties, or to good government and citizens of a country ?
  • What is LSI getting in return for its four-year silence, when all these events happened and LSI is bringing them forth only now?
  • How much is the leader of LSI to be trusted and her promise for a strong opposition, when prior, this opposition wasn’t “faithful” to its citizens, but “traded” in party agreements?
  • How reliant can a LSI opposition be, when many reforms that will continue during the second mandate of Edi Rama have been approved with LSI’s votes?