TIRANA, October 4 – The head of the National Council of the Democratic Party (DP), Edi Paloka reacted to the news that the US has sanctioned a senior politician in Bosnia after he set up a patronage scheme for elections, while congratulating Albania’s PM Edi Rama on his victory in elections manipulated by the network of patronagists.
The army of patronagists gathered sensitive data on 900,000 electors in Albania and were set the task of pressuring them to vast the vote in favor of the Socialist Party.
The list of patronagists was made public and any Albanian knows who was spying on him/her. Most of the patronagists were neighbors of the victims.
“How can it be that the Prime Minister of Bosnia was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department because he only used the data of pensioners and only to send them a propaganda message on the election, while Rama who used the data of all voters to put open pressure on them through the patronagists (as it has come out publicly in the media) not only is not sanctioned, but it is “embraced” as a partner and congratulated “for the historic victory” without the voting process being closed yet?!!!” was the question put by Paloka on social networks.
There is not yet any explanation by Kim or her advisors at the US Embassy on this double standard of the US diplomacy towards government heads of two Western Balkan countries punishing the government head of Bosnia while applauding Albania’s PM. /Argumentum.al
