The trap where Veliaj invites us

2024-12-11 10:52:00, Opinione Andi Bushati

Since the day when some BKH investigators showed up at the door of his house, Erion Veliaj has been trying to keep a fight going with his political opponents. The evening after the inspection, upon returning from Hamburg, he spoke to the "oppositionists immersed in the mire of corruption" and the "so-called media" who attack anyone who refuses to be blackmailed. Instead of a normal explanation of what had happened, he tried to light the fuse of controversy.

This tendency became even stronger at the beginning of this week. In a post where the language of hatred was blinding, he dealt with Sali Berisha and his entourage. In the analysis of the text made by the editors of Lapsi.al, the mayor's position, which you can read below, it is easy to see that he is oversaturated with a bullying vocabulary. Whoever studies this type of language, it is clear that it is a street sacrifice to attract attention at any cost. By using phrases such as "rotten corpse", "scum of evil", "spoiled soup", "dirty mugs", even the most profane communication specialist knows that they tend to grab the headlines, to highlight the superficial quarrel and not the essence of the matter.

Focusing on the comments that Sali Berisha made on the inspection of his apartment by the investigators, Veliaj tried to transfer the problem with the incinerator of Tirana and the thefts of 5D to the opposition.

Is he right to do so? At first glance, it seems so.

In any normal democratic order, neither political rivals nor media critics rush to make you a public trial before the one that takes place in the due process of law. It rarely happens, or never at all, that without showing convincing evidence to the public, the digital citizen who has learned that Ajola Xoxa was seized with a quarter of a million euros in the office is quoted. Much less can it be insisted, without presenting any facts, that this money was hidden in exchange for a blackmail against Edi Rama's brother.

So Veliaj, like everyone who is not in favor of this model, has the right to distance himself from it. Even going to the end of the tendency to amnesty him at all costs, it can be said without fear that part of the portrayal he makes of Berisha, matches the dominant collective imagination that exists for the leader of the opposition.

But, having said that, it must be affirmed that in Erion Veliaj's approach there is a screaming lack of principled coherence and trust in a model. As anyone referring to developed Western societies, it is clear that the rules of operation are different. There, a man in the position of the mayor of Tirana, would never have the luxury of dealing with the media and the opposition, without giving some simple explanations. He should first clarify what the investigators were looking for in his house and what they found there. Without hiding from the reporters as he did when they met him at the airport, or when they were sitting in front of the SP headquarters, while he was leaving through the back door, he should have told what his role was at the Tirana incinerator, at the company of his friends of the 5D. He should talk about what point the investigations of his "colleagues" have reached and what are his arguments for what they have found.

And that would be just the minimum commitment. Because in a normal society, much more should be required of a high public official. If he signed by bypassing the City Council for the construction of an incinerator, which evaporated the money, but he did not lay a single brick, if he had under his control, in the municipality, a whole spider's web, which passed millions of taxes to the private company of directors, he should at most not set foot in that office again until the process was over.

In our TV studios, the two standards of the SPAK are often rightly blamed, which imprisons people who were in power a decade ago under the pretext of tampering with evidence, and lets those suspected of serious theft go free to work. But, apart from this institutional responsibility, there is also a moral one. This would require Veliaj to resign, resign or be dismissed by the prime minister. He cannot continue his functions as if nothing had happened.

This is what happens in normal democracies, which we cannot use only the form to throw away the substance. This is exactly what Veliaj is trying to do by using hate speech as a shield against accountability.

This is the trap he is inviting us all to fall into, pretending to forget that his role as a crusader against Berishism has come to an end. He is already in another position: to give account to those who are suspected of putting their hands in his pockets.