After the parliamentary majority rejected the request of the Prosecution of Serious Crimes to strip deputy Saimir Tahiri, the Democratic Party deputies left the hall in protest.
Opposition leader Lulzim Basha declared before leaving the hall that the vote to protect Tahiri, who is accused of collaborating in international drug traffic and passive corruption, shows that the government has fallen:
This government has fallen, it has de facto died and the hours of the narco-state have begun to tick backward. Today, with this vote you protected yourselves, and you have exchanged the rose [emblem of the PS] for the cannabis flower. […]
This was a vote to protect stolen tenders, clientelist concessions, expropriates public resources, to protect half of the men in your cabinet, filmed and wiretapped by your partners that have given you the proofs and direct links to the crime of drugs and arms.
In protest, the PD deputies held up signs with “No the crime” and “Mafia government.”
Prime Minister Edi Rama replied to the opposition stating:
Don’t go on to hate us because the more you hate us the more you lose your logic.
During a press conference after the parliamentary session, when asked by journalists about the recent vote, the Prime Minister attacked the present journalists:
First of all, shame on all of you and everyone like you who still didn’t understand what this is about and continue to scream with those questions without point or meaning.
You still didn’t understand that we are today in simple conditions, clear for anyone that makes the effort to read 5 lines before they shout.
You still didn’t understand that first of all the immunity of the deputy [Tahiri] has been withdrawn for a long time. We are not in a situation where we discuss whether to remove it or not. Did you understand? No.
Second, you still didn’t understand […] that are part of this big problem, not in this concrete example but in general, where accusations crackle and you convey them like a copper wire and don’t have the duty to think or the responsibility for what you are conveying.
Unfortunately for Prime Minister Rama, the issue that Parliament voted about was precisely the parliamentary immunity of deputy Tahiri, as established in art. 73 of the Constitution, an immunity, moreover, that does exist in Western countries. The question that was today “treated” in Parliament, is whether Tahiri can be prosecuted and treated like an ordinary Albanian citizen.
This is not the first time that Prime Minister Rama, out of frustration or spite, has insulted and belittled the press, even though most of the large media conglomerates are tightly affiliated with his government.
