VIDEO / Berisha: Albania Is Under the Grip of Crime! Democrats’ Challenge Is the Defense of the Free Vote

After outlining the achievements of the Democratic Party while it was in power, Democratic Party leader Sali Berisha accused the government of Edi Rama of bringing crime into politics, manipulating pluralism, and erasing the free vote.

He stressed that the Democratic Party, despite attacks and repeated attempts to eliminate it, has remained steadfast in defending the truth and the free vote, confronting electoral manipulation and the interference of organized crime in the electoral process.

According to Berisha, this struggle represents a decisive historic moment for the future of Albania and its democracy.

Excerpts from the address of the Democratic Party leader, Sali Berisha:

Above all, we took an Albania that was ranked among the poorest countries and placed it in the group of upper-middle-income countries.

Faithful to our ideals, we lost the elections, accepted the rotation of power, and went into opposition. In other words, we upheld values and principles. What has happened today? Today, the party in power is the party of crime. There can be no other name for the ruling party except the party of crime. In reality, it has ties to criminality. In reality, it grew on the blood of honest Albanians, in civil conflict. In reality, it survived through the most brutal repression of Albanians. And today, more than at any time in its history, it steals from Albanians and humiliates the Albanian nation.

My friends, under the dictatorship of narco-thugs, voting was carried out to the sound of drums and tambourines, it is well known. The fear sown by party operatives who, three months before elections, went from building to building spreading terror, led people to vote automatically for the candidate they were told to support. But what about today? Where are we now? Today we are once again in a dictatorship, one that differs from the previous one. How does it differ? It formally accepts pluralism. The former banned it constitutionally. This one does not ban it in the constitution; on the contrary, the constitution enshrines a democratic order. But it suppresses pluralism by all means. It suppresses pluralism by all means and renders it meaningless, turning it into a façade.

Edi Rama achieves this by turning elections into a farce—through propaganda claiming that farces are votes, that farces are elections. There are no democrats and non-democrats. Today our political force is at an extraordinarily difficult moment, yet one that is decisive for the fate of Albania and Albanians. On one hand, this enemy of the free vote does not hold elections, or holds farcical elections, much like its predecessors. On the other hand, all the loudspeakers of the media—42 mercenaries of free speech—are deployed every night to tell Albanians that Edi Rama wins elections and that the opposition loses elections, in order to defend an unlimited deception.

But this time it did not work. This time, thanks to the work you did and the stance you maintained, no. He attacked like a bandit and sought at all costs to change the assessments of international observers. He failed disgracefully. On the contrary, I will summarize those reports in just two sentences. At the Council of Europe, the recommendation was that party and state be separated in Albania. What does this mean? It means that elections in Albania resemble those under monism: the state, with all its power, competes, while parties compete with resources dozens of times smaller. Meanwhile, in the European Parliament, the chief election observer declared that in Albania, organized crime does not allow the rotation of power.

Have you heard these disfigured media speak even once about interference, about the dreadful role of organized crime? Very rarely. It cannot be denied. But drug cartels do not have as their primary mission the government’s farcical electoral campaign. I return once more to us, the party of truths. This time, despite the ordeal we went through, the most undeserved, the most absurd, the ordeal endured by the Democratic Party is worthy of becoming the script of one of the most Orwellian films imaginable. Why? Because we defended the truth.