Translated from Albanian · Original article in Albanian →
Former Democratic Party MP Ervin Salianji has called for Sali Berisha to step down as leader of the PD, accusing him of holding the opposition hostage to personal interests. Reacting to the youth protests, Salianji claims that Edi Rama and Berisha support each other to preserve a political system that excludes citizens from decision-making. Salianji holds Berisha responsible for electoral defeats, the departure of the most-voted figures and the international isolation of the PD. According to him, the party leadership has been put at the service of the chairman’s personal fate, weakening the opposition’s ability to mobilise society.
He argues that the youth revolt is directed against the entire system and that Berisha’s inclusion in the protesters’ discontent is also linked to the silence which, according to Salianji, the PD leader has kept on the towers, concessions and tenders. Salianji calls on Democrats to demand Berisha’s departure, describing this as necessary for the party’s survival and for the creation of a new political alternative.
SALIANJI’S REACTION
THE YOUTH REVOLT AGAINST THE RAMA–BERISHA CO-GOVERNANCE!
The Rama–Berisha regime is acting in coordination to extinguish the youth revolt. Both tell us: “Forget about us leaving power”; neither steps down by resigning and neither accepts fair elections. Both have built a perverse electoral system and both co-govern to hold Albania hostage.
Sali Berisha, 36 years in power is enough! You are suffocating the Democratic Party and seriously harming Albania’s interests.
Ever since you took the PD hostage to your personal interest, you lost the municipalities, gave Rama the chance to win a qualified majority, destroyed meritocracy and drove the most-voted people out of the party. You isolated the PD internationally, closing the doors of its partners; today no ambassador enters the PD headquarters because you are there, while you cannot go out to the square and cannot even visit Tirana’s boulevard! You have weakened it so much at home, just as much as with its partners, that today the opposition cannot mobilise society in the square, and worse still, society has mobilised to throw the last politburo members out of the political system.
Sali Berisha, you are the only party leader who refuses to leave after 36 years. You have turned the party into personal property and the opposition into a hostage of your political fate. How can you be the hope of young people after 36 years? How can you try to impose yourself on society when you cannot even go out to walk in the street!
The youth revolt is no accident. It is a revolt against a system that excludes them, impoverishes them and steals their future.
And there is reason and justification why this revolt hits you too, Sali: because you cannot be the voice of citizens against corruption when, faced with the towers, concessions and tenders, you choose silence. When the towers, concessions and tenders belong to the same clientele. You cannot fight a government with which, according to this political accusation, you have become part of the same system.
Because, Sali, citizens have real anger and revolt against Rama because he abuses them, steals from them and impoverishes them, while for 36 years you have been paid from citizens’ sacrifices, with offices, cars and escorts; you have not gone a single day without a salary. Why has the tower at the Palace of Congresses shut your mouth and closed your eyes?
Rama and Berisha need each other. One uses power, the other holds the opposition hostage. Both benefit from a system that does not give citizens a real chance to choose.
Young people are not asking for a change of turn in power within the same system. They are asking for its end. Dignified Democrats must demand the departure of Sali Berisha so that the party survives and serves society.
Albania is not Rama’s property. Nor Berisha’s. Its future cannot be held hostage by two men who refuse to make way for a new alternative.
Neither Rama nor Berisha! Albania above their personal interests! Berisha’s departure opens the way for Rama’s departure within the month!
