Electoral crime/ Rama asks SPAK to put a lid on it

2025-02-20 17:52:00, Opinione CNA

by Armand Shkullaku

It sounds unbelievable, but Edi Rama, who has not been well in recent days, did this too. During his morning monologue, wearing the same black t-shirt, the country's prime minister asked SPAK in an imperative and blackmailing manner not to investigate electoral crime during this pre-election period.

"Political parties cannot be monitored in an electoral process. I hope that this is a momentary error and that any kind of surveillance in the territory is immediately stopped because we can never, ever return to the dark times of who deals with politics being monitored". In fact, this statement was the real error of the prime minister, who with voice and image orders an independent government not to control patronage agents, ministers, deputies, directors, realtors, businessmen and the very dear criminals, whom he mobilizes every time there is an election to distort the vote of Albanians. In fact, under the anxiety that this could happen, Rama even arrived at a rare definition that the investigation of electoral crime is, as he said, "an interference in the political freedoms and rights of Albanians and their representatives". There cannot be a more interesting definition than this to allow the ruling party to repeat the electoral massacres.

In other words, the prime minister is asking SPAK to continue doing what it has done so far. To turn a blind eye to the gangs, which wiretaps clearly showed how they were voting for the Rilindja organization and were then rewarded with tenders. To not investigate those state employees who go out to buy votes, now with bags in neighboring countries as well. To not surveil police officers as they line up to serve the government. To not wiretap the directors of the Rilindja five-party organizations as they convert budget money into trafficked votes. In other words, to leave Edi Rama alone so that he can solve these elections as he knows how.

If there has been a strong and consistent accusation that Edi Rama controls the new justice system, it has been precisely the deliberate toleration of electoral crime that keeps the Rilindja regime afloat. Together with the corruption of tenders and concessions, which has not yet been touched by SPAK, they have been the two pillars of the motto: we steal Albania to steal votes and we steal votes to steal Albania. However, until today, it had not been seen or heard that the prime minister would publicly, openly and by order of the boys of SPAK request this invaluable service.

The subtext of Rama's order not to interfere with Rilindja's "political rights" was very clear. SPAK has permission to monitor and imprison, for example, Fredi Beleri two days before the elections, to wiretap opposition representatives and activists like in the 2021 elections, to not intimidate the gangs of Shkodra, Elbasan, Durrës, etc., when they are voting for Rilindja as encrochat showed us, to track and lock up opposition leaders in cells so that they do not have the opportunity to campaign... Well, SPAK cannot have permission to monitor or investigate the ruling party in any way. This seems absurd to Edi Rama and for the first time his mouth spoke what was in his heart.

And besides the open, bare-knuckle order not to dare investigate his organization during electoral "activity", the prime minister's venting in front of the computer also felt like a "prayer" to SPAK: let me get as many mandates as I want so that I can then fix them, with the majority vote and Fatmir Xhafa's platform, the standards of justice that we want.

If Edi Rama's message today to SPAK was clear, the motive for why he was forced to do something so openly and almost violently is not so easy to understand. Some link it to a serious psychological state after the US elections and the bleak prospect of approaching the White House. Others think that the fear of a repentant Veliaj has increased his insecurity. Some see it as an attempt to encourage a frightened official or a disappointed bandit to be calm that they will not be monitored.

And if to this is added the paranoia that after the "freezing" of the US embassy in Tirana, someone other than him could get his hands on SPAK, the anxiety of uncertainty becomes stronger. An uncertainty that for Edi Rama turns into terror just by a question that can even pass through his mind in passing: what if I lose the elections, what will happen to me? And the imagined answer is enough for fear to dominate reason and, with eyes that shoot 360 degrees, to universally order justice: don't you dare investigate me during the campaign! Perhaps this is the first prime minister in the world who openly seeks to be declared untouchable, especially before the elections.