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“For me, this meeting, this Foltore is the most important and crucial event in our effort for a complete reconstruction of the Democratic Party, for its placement as a real Albanian opposition, in a decisive force of victory. I guarantee you that I have my based belief because I know that you are the girls and boys of the purest ideals of the Albanian society,” the veteran leader of the Democratic Party (DP), Sali Berisha said in a meeting with members of the Youth Forum of the Democratic Party (FRPD) organized in Tirana on Sunday in the series of such events across Albania in the frame of Foltore, a conversation of Berisha with the party grassroots.
Berisha’s Foltore comes just two days after Lulzim Basha, the ‘chairman without a party’ as Berisha uses to call him announced the restructuring of the FRPD and the election for the new head after its current chairman, Belind Kellici, who is also a deputy in the new parliament, joined the ranks of Berisha.
Although a sunny warm Sunday, hundreds of youth gathered in the tour of meetings launched by Berisha in the frame of the so called ‘Foltore’ with the aim of restructuring the DP, convening the party’s National Assembly to elect the new chairman and mobilizing the rank-and-file in what he considers the struggle to overthrow the narco-state of Edi Rama, who is ruling Albania for the third mandate won on April 25 as DP under the leadership of Lulzim Basha suffered the worst defeat for the third time in 2013 and 2017.
The DP also lost the local government elections. Berisha and many members of the DP blame Basha for the losses and disastrous situation in the ranks of the largest opposition political force and have asked for his resignation, something rejected by him.
“We will tear down the walls and overthrow this regime, which is more hostile to Albanian youth than anyone else. I invite you, regardless of political beliefs, to rise up,” Berisha told an enthusiastic crowd of youth which houted “Berisha, Berisha!,” ” Rama go!,” and “Basha go!”.
Berisha admitted that DP has serious internal problems for the moment. “The chairman held hostage has lost all sorts of leadership morale and has finally attacked your organization and the Democratic Women’s organization in a shameful primitive revenge. If his stature was of a man, he would have to be in front of you. He should have been here, with Belind and Rigels, in an open debate, but he has locked himself in his office, giving orders by phone and declaring the usurpation of the FRPD, the usurpation of the Women’s League,” said Berisha, who added that FRDP is not property of any one as it has its status and form of organization. So, he said that the youth will conduct the electoral process to elect the leaders because Basha cannot determine anything; he has been seized by fear and horror from the DP membership youth.
“Today there are two major problems in Albania, the ‘killer of hopes’ or the head of the medusa (Edi Rama), and the ‘ghost of expectations’, his hostage Lulzim Basha, who has been taken hostage and makes any decision dictated by the hostage-taker,” said Berisha.
