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Ditari i Opozitës

Berisha: DP supports the protest, Rama leads a regime without legitimacy

Politiko 2026-06-17 11:34:55

Berisha: DP supports the protest, Rama leads a regime without legitimacy
The opposition leader meets with the Department of Education and accuses the government of autocracy, electoral farce, and suppression of pluralism.

In a meeting with the Department of Education, the leader of the Democratic Party, Sali Berisha, declared that the DP fully supports the civic protest taking place in Tirana, describing it as a just cause against an autocratic regime that, according to him, has not emerged from a free vote.

Berisha said that the protest arose in reaction to the violence exerted against a protesting citizen, the barbed wire fencing of the community, and the lack of transparency for a project that affects an area of particular environmental and biodiversity importance.

According to him, the protest has taken on unprecedented proportions, becoming one of the largest civic movements in recent years. He emphasized that the Democratic Party did not organize the protest, but decided to strongly support it because of what it considers a legitimate cause in defense of citizens' rights.

During his speech, Berisha made strong accusations against Prime Minister Edi Rama, describing his government as an authoritarian regime that uses state institutions to suppress the opposition and political pluralism.

He stated that the Democratic Party has managed to prove, in cooperation with international partners, that the 2023 local elections and the May 11 parliamentary elections were "electoral farces", conducted under party-state conditions.

PART OF THE DECLARATION

Once again, a very warm greeting, I express my pleasure in meeting you.
I asked to meet with you at a very critical moment, at a moment when Albania needs more than ever the support of its citizens and intellectuals.

A youth civic movement, for reasons now known, the savage brutality, the dragging as if he were a beast of a citizen who was protesting in the most peaceful way, the encirclement with barbed wire as if it were a concentration camp of a community, in the most flagrant violation of the Constitution, the laws of the country, but also international laws that oblige governments to inform about everything and discuss everything that develops with the respective community, and Albania is a party to this convention, the Aarhus Convention, therefore, in defense of an amazing colony of birds and a very rich biodiversity habitat, caused the youth and citizens of Tirana and Albania to explode in a protest, the scale of which has never been seen in the history of this country.

A protest so powerful, so massive, so sustainable. It surpasses, I tell you, all other protests.
A just protest, a protest that, if we take its three elements: the first, the brutality against the citizen and the violation of his rights; the brutality against the community and the barbed wire fence; and the complete, 100%, lack of transparency for a file that had to do with a protected landscape of our country.

In this context, the Democratic Party decided to first of all fully respect this protest, which it had not called, but to strongly support it, because its cause was a just cause.
It was a just cause because the actions were typical actions of an autocratic regime, of a regime without legitimacy, a regime that has not emerged from a free vote, and it is to the greatest credit of this party, which managed, in cooperation with the international community, to prove that the elections, such as the May 14 local elections, and the general elections of May 11, were electoral farces.
They were held, as international reports already describe, under party-state conditions. Elections under party-state conditions are the elections of totalitarian regimes.

This is not a totalitarian regime, but this is a regime that suppresses pluralism, uses institutions to suppress pluralism, and this is the difference between a totalitarian dictatorship and an authoritarian dictatorship.
To win the elections, Edi Rama, just like Zajedi of Tunisia, arrested the two leaders of the main opposition parties, and put the third under criminal prosecution in the electoral year. He mobilized billions and billions of public funds to influence.
Just two days before the elections, he gave a gift for votes, 2 billion and 100 million euros in fines and interest.
He guaranteed a list of 28 deputies with the Troplini cartel, the Çela cartel and other drug cartels, criminal organizations, so much so that the representatives of the European Parliament concluded that in Albania, organized crime does not allow rotation.