“This is not for one party or another to gain popularity but to save Albania from organized crime,” says Lulzim Basha, leader of the Democratic Party.
TIRANA, May 21 – Opposition Democratic Party of Tirana Mayor Lulzim Basha has planned to hold a protest this Friday, the second after its last week’s one held in front of the parliament building.
This time, the protest is scheduled to be held in front of the government main building.
“The fight against drugs is a hard battle but we are more determined than ever to win at any cost this battle with our allies and civil society. This is not for one party or another to gain popularity but to save Albania from organized crime. Our task is to raise the awareness of citizens and to be in the forefront of their protests,” said Basha in an effort to attract more supporters.
He also met with other smaller opposition political parties to get their support too.
Basha said that the protest motto will be “people standing against drugs, Rama should go home.”
He said they aim at developing “a major protest that Albania has ever known.”
He has started a tour around the country, making his first stop in Lushnja, the region where authorities found a small plane that crashed and that was supposed to transport some cannabis sativa brought there by another person. Both the pilot and the alleged trafficker are under arrest.
Last week the Democrats held a public protest in Tirana, demanding that the eight-month-old Socialist government resign after accusing Prime Minister Edi Rama of involvement in drug trafficking.
A couple of thousand people gathered Thursday last week in front of parliament, where their leader said his conservative Democratic Party would launch an indefinite protest. Inside the parliament the Democratic Party lawmakers managed to convince the majority Socialists and their allies to hold a prolonged debate accusing each other of drug trafficking.
The Democrats lost in a landslide to Rama’s Socialist-led coalition in the general elections last year in a landslide loss.
Albania has a large local cannabis trade and is a transit point for drugs coming from Asia. The government angrily denied the opposition claims and said it had markedly improved the country’s anti-drug policing.
Rama said that it is strange how they could be accused of failing in stopping drug traffic at a time when they have significantly much higher results in seizing it in attempts to leave the country toward the main neighbors of the European Union bloc — Greece and Italy.
The Socialists added that the drugs they are seizing are the ones planted and harvested while the Democrats were in power last year.
Clive Rumbold of the European Union delegation in Tirana told reporters Tuesday police should not be mixed up in the political fight and called on the political parties to leave aside targeting police. Rumbold was taking part at the elimination of 1.8 tons of drugs seized from police.
