In the last parliamentary session, after a sitting intervention, the former Prime Minister Sali Berisha told to the Socialist MP Blerina Gjylameti: “Please do not interrupt me because you are the one that signet for the gambling. I was stunned. You have signed the gambling regulations law. You are the first woman to do so in history…”. By this words, Berisha made it clear for the newcomer of the SP, that she should be careful because she is being used wrongly and ugly.

After this, the MP did not reply and the cameras focused on her thoughtful portrait after Berisha’s words. It seems that these days after the postponement of the gambling regulation law, Rama and Ahmetaj do have strong financial interests. The naive MP has deepened a little more on this issue, and she discovered a part of the truth.

She used her time on the yesterday meeting of the SP Parliamentary Group, to hold the chair of this group Gramoz Ruçi accountable. She inquired on the issue at hand, on how is this law that she herself formally “initiated” with five other colleagues. The transcriptof the debate made by “Panorama” is as following:

Blerina Gjylameti: “Mr. Ruçi i wanted to know if there is a stance of the SP Parliamentary Group on the postponement of the Gambling Regulation Law?

Gramoz Ruçi: We do not have yet a stand on the issue. The initiative was yours as an MP.

Blerina Gjylameti: It is not my initiative. I was asked by my Parliamentary Group to support the initiative. I signed it because i thought that this was a coordinated proposal of the majority, but giving that you do not have a stand on this issue, then i will take my name out of this proposal for lack of information.

Gramoz Ruçi: When the initiative makes it to the session, we will express our stance, but for now we do not have one.

Arben Ahmetaj: The implementation of this law is accompanied by a financial invoice. If it starts to get implemented from today, we will have a huge leak in the budget that goes to 2.5 billion ALL, that is why it’s better to postpone it for a certain period.

If the purpose of this postponement is tied to this financial cost, why do you not make it an initiative of the government or of the Parliamentary Group, but it is being consulted as an initiative of six MPs?

Edi Rama: I think that this issue received a proper answer.

As you can see from this debate, Blerina Gjylameti and probably the other five MPs that signed the initiative for the postponement of the implementation of the Gambling Regulations Law for another two years, have fallen in the trap of Arben Ahmetaj and Edi Rama. The later has lied to his own MPs by telling them that this is an initiative of the SP Parliamentary Group and of the majority. But Gramoz Ruçi, as it seems “not lobbed” by the gambling bosses, has relieved himself and the Group of this responsibility by passing the ball again to the six MPs.

As the dialogue shows. Gjylameti has signed only after she was told that this postponement is a decision of the Parliamentary Group and of the majority in general. Yet Ruçi hurries to declare that there is no such initiative on behalf of the Group and that it has been put forward by the MPs that signed it. Imagine how the nice-looking MP Gjylameti felt in that situation.

In this caught bluff, regardless of the attempt of the Minister of Finances to deviate the attention, the trap and nasty game that they used to the signing MP, she declared that she folds on the issue, understanding finally that she was being used.

Even after Ahmetaj’s deliberation, that this postponement is an issue of financies, Rama hurried to keep down this shameful scandal with the sentence: “I think that this issue received a proper answer.”

But what kind of answer did it receive? That of Ahmetaj saying that the law should be postponed because the gambling saloons have already paid the rent on the current locations? In a time that he had told to Gjylameti to sign it as a group decision, and now tells her that this is a question of 2.5 billion Lek.

What truth is there to this initiative?

MPs Ervin Bushati, Ervin Koçi, Blerina Gjylameti, Luan Duzha, Ylli Shehu and Tahir Muhedini, are the signers. Now, as it is showing, this is not a political decision of the majority coalition, but just a game of big interests for Prime Minister Rama and the finance minister Ahmetaj.

Edi Rama, since his first days in office declared an uncompromised war against the gambling agencies that was blooming and keeps blooming stronger not only in the capital.

“The last madness” was the name of his first operation that was showing him strong enough to lead with a firm fist, that now “the state is here” and that gambling will not destroy anymore the pockets and families of the Albanians. It is true that after this operation, several betting saloons and casinos went under closure but immediately after this, dozens more flourished with new owners this time.

“We are decided and very dedicated to eradicate the ties that this activity has and has had with the politics and the support that it got from corrupting politics and the economic crime police. The involvement of politics in this issue is clear when you find yourself in front of this massive industry of crime. Without political support, there cannot exist any industry of economic crime.” Declared Rama at the time.

Careful! Rama underlines the support that this activity found in politics.

But why is it now, after more than three years that the Prime Minister is folding back? Do the bosses of gambling stay away from corrupting politics just as he depicted three years ago? At the end of the day we need to know the real reasons behind this situation when he, just as in the case of the law of waste import, gives himself up to the lobby of gambling by negating himself 100% and also what he promised to Albanians just as he came to power.

Of course there happen to be strong financial interests in an industry that produces hundreds of millions of Euro every year. Arben Ahmetaj, as a master in this game, knows better that in the eve of the elections, a fistful of millions of Euros more, would not do any harm to the Rilindja and his boss, in the target to win another term. The means they are using thou it is way more than shameful: by lying and cheating not only on their voters but on their MPs also.

Right after the big anti-gambling campaign, Rama delivered a new law, according to which there would be special regulation for this business activity, and implying the physical distance of the betting and gambling saloons from all urban areas.

It’s more than three years now since “The Last Madness” of Rama that was actually his first in a long line, and this activity has done no less than bloom even more. This happened because even though the law passed in parliament, it has never been implemented, and now they are asking to postpone it for two more years.

The new law obliges this subjects to respect the distances of the betting saloons. According to the initiative that was blindly signed (at least by Gjylameti), this clause becomes impossible to implement during the current transitioning period because the rent contracts that this subjects have signed lays for a longer period. The postponement of the deadline according to the “lobbying MPs”, will impact also the juridical clashes between the parties that hold these contracts. But what is it that Ahmetaj says today? A big hole in the state budget!

The mockery and the vulgar use that Rama does systematically to his own MPs as a means to his personal deals, now is in no need of further comments.