Basha Announces Drive to Establish ‘Consensus’ for Albania’s Salvation

TIRANA – “The opposition will be on the side of any protest. I welcome the broad consensus that is being created that the salvation of Albania comes only by removing the wrongdoer, Edi Rama, who is the evil of Albania,” Lulzim Basha, head of the opposition Democratic Party (DP), has told the EU ambassadors in Tirana.

A rough overview of the highlights unveiled to the EU top envoys to Albania by Basha, who is also head of the so called ‘united opposition outside of parliament’, shows that they are a cliché repeated daily in every public appearance.

“I shared with the ambassadors two main concerns that this government is hindering integration and ruining the economy,” Basha declared in a press conference with local journalists as having told the diplomatic representatives in Tirana. “It is necessary to forge a medium-term and long-term plan of measures with the EU to support the economy of Albanian families.”

Further on Basha reiterated to the Ambassadors that instead of meeting the 15 conditions for opening accession talks and taking the country out of the crisis, Albania is taking steps backwards. Due to Edi Rama, the crisis is deepening, and Albania is distancing from Europe even more, according to him. “The opposition remains committed to Albania’s path to European integration and the fulfillment of 15 conditions. I asked the ambassadors for the help of the EU, for Albania to face the political, economic and social assistance.”

Speaking of the economic situation he repeated that due to Edi Rama’s corrupt decisions to take the money to a handful of oligarchs and not to people in need, the situation has worsened.

Regarding elections Basha insisted that free and fair elections are one of the points of the engagement in the contract with the artists, who protected the National Theater which was demolished on Sunday morning by the Tirana Municipality.

Earlier before its demolition Basha had pledged that if the Theater was brought down the fire would arrive at Surrel, the residence of PM Rama something which, fortunately, did not happen.

“The opposition will be on the side of any protest,” said Basha who participated in a protest called by the Alliance for the Protection of the Theater on Monday afternoon, which pledged to continue the fight as bulldozers were cleaning the rubbles of the crumbled building protected by police forces.

Basha closed his remarks in the press conference as having told the Ambassadors that what majority is doing with the electoral reform aims at preventing its conclusion and in such circumstances he told the Ambassadors that the opposition “cannot be a façade”.  He did not elaborate on how it will not be a ‘façade’. Opposition boycotted the consecutive meeting of the Political Commission on the electoral reform on Monday whose task is to conclude the electoral reform on May 31.

After the latest developments overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic and the relevant lockdown restrictions the opposition head Basha did not made available any new concrete action of the opposition in the frame of the highlights propagated above.

In this frame a quick overview of the comments of some political analysts on the state of the opposition made on Monday’s TV evening has a common denominator: the current PM, Edi Rama can carry out any decision that comes to his mind as he is aware that the current opposition is in total disarray having lost the confidence of most of Albanians besides the support of its fanatic followers. /argumentum.al