Former Democratic Party Chairman Sali Berisha invited the incumbent chairman Lulzim Basha and his supporters to participate in the extraordinary National Assembly of December 11. Basha has rejected from the beginning the idea of an extraordinary assembly that was demanded by the base after he suspended Berisha from the Democrat parliamentary group. However, Berisha and his followers started a petition inviting the Assembly delegates to sign for its convocation and consigned the forms to Head of the National Council Edi Paloka.

Berisha also gave guarantees that should Basha and company refuse the invitation they will not be expelled from the party.

"They are afraid and terrorized by your signatures, but we will set them free. They are a part of us. Let them come to the Assembly, but even if they don’t they won’t be expelled from the Democratic Party. In the National Assembly we will transform the Democratic Party into the most powerful engine of the Albanian politics”, Berisha said in a meeting with Democrat members and supporters in Saranda.

He added the 4200 signatures for the convocation of the Assembly will not be made public for the sake of their privacy protection, according to the European Convent of the Human Rights, but said Basha, in the capacity of a party member and no capacity else may go and see them in Paloka’s office.