Territorial Reform and Albania’s Depopulation/Berisha: Residents of Poliçan Should Serve as an Example; Tyranny Over Citizens’ Interests Cannot Be Allowed

Democratic Party leader Sali Berisha placed territorial reform at the center of a conference with experts, where he also presented the position of the DP working group on the territorial division.

He referred in particular to the protest by residents of Poliçan, who opposed the Socialist Party’s proposal to dissolve the municipality and burned PS membership cards.

According to Berisha, territorial reform is of decisive importance for local communities and Albanian society, while its current implementation has been transformed into a mechanism that has contributed to the depopulation of the country. He said that Edi Rama had realized this was a lost battle and that the reform had created widespread dissatisfaction.

Berisha said that the resistance of Poliçan’s residents should also encourage other communities which, according to him, the government uses for electoral interests and the centralization of power. He called on residents of other municipalities to follow the same example, stressing that a tyrant cannot make decisions to the detriment of citizens’ interests.

Berisha said that the 2014 territorial reform, which he described as an anti-reform, had become a major factor in the emptying of Albania. According to him, it was transformed into a pillar of Vaso Çubrilloviç’s platform for removing Albanians from their own lands.

Referring to the writings of the racist and criminal academic, he said that at the heart of this platform were the deterioration of services, the lack of infrastructure and making life as difficult as possible for Albanians in their settlements, including their lands in Kosovo.

He recalled that the 2014 territorial division reduced the 410 local government units—municipalities and communes combined—to just 61 municipalities, or local government units. Berisha described this as the harshest blow against rural Albania and, more broadly, against the country, since, according to him, there can be no developed Albania without a developed rural area.

Berisha claimed that more than 45 percent of the population had lost services and direct links with a government represented by people elected by them. He added that residents had also lost the prospect of living in the communes where they had their homes, while the development of rural Albania had come to a standstill.

As an example, he mentioned the former commune of Shëngjergj, which is now the village of Shëngjergj, saying that not a single lek had been invested in the area from 2013 to the present. Berisha stressed that Shëngjergj and the surrounding areas have some of the country’s most extraordinary mountain tourism potential, but the road beyond Shëngjergj is difficult to pass.

He called on the media to visit every former commune, claiming that no investment had been made there. Regarding Baldushk, Berisha cited as the only investment what he described as Erion Veliaj’s deception: the construction of a museum which, according to him, was found filled with bags of bay leaves, with the aim of stealing 400 million lek.

Berisha also mentioned Preza and Ndroq, where, according to him, life and development have remained at a standstill, leaving residents with only the option of leaving. He said these communities had no services, while their market had not been facilitated.

According to him, 3.2 billion euros were stolen through the paving stones used in city centers. Berisha declared that with 3.2 billion euros, more than 8,000 kilometers of roads could have been built in rural Albania, along with more than 1,000 educational facilities and health centers, all properly registered.

He concluded by saying that over the past 14 years, the investments carried out could be counted on one’s fingers.