TIRANA, 2 December 2023 – Former Prime Minister Sali Berisha and his supporters gathered the National Assembly today, where they warned of civil disobedience as their next action to oppose the socialist majority in power. “Civil disobedience is my oath”, Mr. Berisha said in his speech, while declaring that “it will be an irreversible action to save democracy”. He invited other opposition factors to join this movement: “We may be different, but Edi Rama is our common enemy. Don’t think that Edi Rama is overthrown with speeches, statements or elections”.
The former prime minister brought as an example of the effect of civil disobedience, the stay in the parliament of the deputies who support him, hindering the development of the sessions and the work of the parliamentary commissions. “There are 43 of us in the parliament, we only have a month and with so many people, in such a short time, with the battle without return and civil disobedience, we took away the mask from Edi Rama. The whole world learned in the last few days that Albania, a NATO member country, has a prime minister who has staged a coup d’état within the country”, said Mr. Berisha.
However, in today’s Assembly, a good part of those deputies, who are part of what is known as the grouping of Mr. Gazmend Bardhi, were missing. Critics of the return of Mr. Basha to the head of the official DP, in September, they approached the deputies who support the former prime minister, to strengthen the position of the opposition in the parliament hall, but refusing today to be part of what Mr. Berisha considers it as the true Democratic Party.
The former prime minister did not make it clear when this action of the opposition will extend beyond the parliament, and what form of civil disobedience he is talking about.
One of the moments that stood out in the Parliament was the appearance for the first time in a political activity of the Democrats, of Mrs. Argita Malltezi, the daughter of the former prime minister. But Mr. Berisha stated that she simply took the floor as an activist from the first days of the founding of the Democratic Party. “It is her first public speech in the party’s Assembly, but this does not mean anything more than a speech in which she expressed her thoughts as an activist of the Democratic Party”, said Mr. Berisha, while she herself explained that she had no no political ambition.
Mrs. Malltezi’s husband is under house arrest, as part of the investigations of the Special Prosecutor’s Office for the privatization procedures of the former Partizani Sports Club, which have included the former Prime Minister Berisha himself.
Today’s assembly was called for Mr. Berisha’s vote of confidence, after losing the May 14 elections, but in fact they were not discussed. The former prime minister explained this with the fact that, according to him, the country is facing “dramatic developments, I would say the most dramatic developments from 1991 until today, of the coup within the country, against the opposition. Of course, this situation dictates the PD, its agenda starting from the parliament and continuing in all its structures. I am convinced that this commitment of the DP and this platform that is presented today in the conditions of the emergency created by the coup d’état within the state, will not hinder the analysis of the Democrats for the past elections”.
The reconfirmation of Mr. Berisha was a formality. Of the 1,000 delegates who participated in the vote for his vote of confidence, only 55 voted against, while 7 votes were declared invalid./VOA-Argumentum.al
