Bela's investigation or arrest, for what it's worth...

Armand Maho

It is a fact that Belinda Balluku is where she is because of her ties to Tirana’s organized crime, which apparently holds Rama hostage through old dealings and favors tied to narcotrafficking — connections dating back to his early days as Minister of Culture. His interference in Tirana’s gang wars, and the honors once paid to him by various underworld figures, are debts that have now come due.

This is the classic case of how a compromised prime minister is held captive — promoting a representative of the gangs, or their remnants, to the highest levels of government, effectively placing the state budget, along with the taxpayers’ hard-earned money, on their banquet table.

Seen through this lens, the investigation opened by SPAK — which could very well send to prison the most talked-about figure for corruption in the last 34 years — ought to be good news.

And yet, it isn’t.

If Balluku goes, Rama will simply replace her with another chess piece — one of those he keeps in his pocket and tests, not for loyalty, but for their willingness to act as kamikazes. In short, the arrest of Belinda Balluku will change nothing.

After all, what changed when Ahmetaj was placed under investigation, facing accusations no less serious than Bela’s? What did Veliaj’s arrest bring? Or that of Beqaj, Koka, Tahiri, and so on? Nothing!

This happens because, as said earlier, they are just chess pieces — at most they clash among themselves, but investigations never reach the one who moves them and designs the strategy of the board.

Edi Rama has made it a habit to act as though he knows nothing, has seen nothing, and has no idea what he has signed. But no matter how much he hides behind ignorance, he cannot claim he was unaware of Saimir Tahiri’s drug trafficking, or of the dealings of Ben Ahmetaj, Lefter Koka, or Erion Veliaj. Nor can it go unnoticed that we continue to pay, every day, for electricity we never receive from ships in Bangladesh — a “gift” from Yuri Kim — or for PPPs, the Llogara concession, healthcare tenders, and so on.

Delegating the signature to Balluku, Ahmetaj, Erion Braçe, and others does not absolve him — not of political or moral responsibility, and not even of criminal liability.

A chief of intelligence from one of the embassies of a major EU country is increasingly voicing, in political and media circles, that Rama’s time may soon be up after Balluku. Let’s hope this won’t end like those ODHIR reports that document electoral inequalities, the merger of party and state to manipulate votes, the pressure of gangs on voters, the use of drug money — and then conclude without offering a single solution.

No.

Rama is no different from Lukashenko in Belarus or Maduro in Venezuela. He is simply using Albania’s historic NATO membership as a shield to consolidate his power, launder money, rob citizens, dismantle democracy, depopulate the country, and dissolve the opposition.

Money knows no color. In this country, anyone can launder it — drug traffickers, terrorists, fraudsters — as long as SPAK doesn’t open the business registry. Were it to do so, it would find the direct and indirect links between those who have stripped the country of every resource and the criminal organizations behind them.

Seen this way, the investigation or arrest of Balluku is good news — but only to a point. Because no one should believe that, as long as this investigation doesn’t reach Rama himself, anything will change. And the U.S. and EU should understand this clearly: they have allowed him to run wild. They must see that Rama has turned this country into a reeking cesspool, not to defend their interests, but those of organized crime.

Albania has already suffered immense damage at his hands. And when they finally realize what he has done to them as well, it will already be too late.