A speech delivered eight years ago by former MP Dashamir Shehi in the Albanian Parliament is today being seen as more relevant than ever.
Speaking from the parliamentary rostrum in 2018, Shehi declared that Prime Minister Edi Rama sells and buys Albania as he pleases, with the sole aim of remaining in power.
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According to him, Rama tries to present himself as Western, but at his core remains an heir of the communists, while the West, where he seeks to prove he belongs, does not know prime ministers who are “buffoons.”
“This prime minister of ours sells and buys Albania however he likes, just to stay in power, and mocks anyone who thinks differently; we are treated like little Turks. He is afraid they will take away his flag of Westernization, because only he, with his white sneakers, deserves to be Western. Especially we in Tirana, we eat tripe and beans, while he eats caviar, the aristocrat. He has no connection whatsoever with the West; the West has no buffoon prime ministers like him.
This is the shame that governs us. Let him say about me that I eat beans and tripe, I am not sullied at all, as long as I serve my country as I have served it. My father graduated in Turin, not like his father who graduated in Russia, the whelps of communism. Whoever stands against him is labeled a little Turk, an Anatolian, Greek-speaking, whatever they feel like calling him.
The day will come when we will collide with a much harsher reality; reflect. We are statesmen and must think about Albania. If he is here for jokes, tripe and raki, he sets it back 200 years; in that line of work, he is my student. We say we should have a normal state, not a buffoon state,” he said.
Meanwhile, for the past 30 days, the square in front of the Prime Minister’s Office and later the streets of Tirana have been filled with thousands of Albanians demanding Rama’s departure and that of his government.
The protest, which initially began as opposition to the project in Zvërnec, has now turned into a popular revolt calling for a change of the establishment.
