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Rama: Better Saliu than Salianji and the two Doctors, the harsh and the delicate

2025-12-07 14:59:00, Opinione Lorenc Vangjeli

Once, with cynicism and black humor, Edi Rama sincerely believed: "Better Saliu than Salianji!". On the eve of the 2021 elections, when he was getting ready to replace in the PS almost the entire generation of people inherited from Fatos Nano, to replace them with new faces who had in common only the idolization of him, more than his plot, the prime minister had his eyes on the DP. Where with a chilling symmetry, Lulzim Basha was adapting the party he had been given to his GMO portrait. Basha was preparing to finally free himself from the human legacy that Sali Berisha had left him, and even to cut the extension of his heavy moral shadow in the opposition. Berisha himself, when they mentioned Rama's opinion live on TV Klan, in Opinion, avoided a direct answer. He neither affirmed nor denied Rama's cynicism, but simply enjoyed the black humor as a truth that is simply explained with the expression "Oh, what a craft!".

Since then, a lot of water has flowed under Lana's bridges. Berisha himself entered the 2021 MP lists amidst controversy, refused to be a co-sharer in his party's third consecutive defeat, was declared non grata by the Anglo-Saxon axis on both sides of the Atlantic, was suspended from the party, rejoined it in the space of a few months and personally lost the fourth consecutive election. Salianji, on the other hand, became one of the most important opposition MPs in the last mandate and, sentenced to prison for defamation, remained off the list in this year's elections. From a supporter of Lulzim Basha, he became his opponent, from holding a baseball bat against Saliu, he became the star of the sensational return of MPs to Berisha's political architecture. He stood out compared to the overwhelming majority of the group in the DP. Young, ambitious, articulate, shameless, but courageous, part of political and rosy chronicles, calculated in actions and with an electoral balance, he suddenly found himself outside the power structure in the opposition and excluded from Berisha's calculations. Like Rama, he prefers naive and dumb loyalty to dubious partners in politics.

Five years later, Berisha's paths crossed again with those of the atypical former MP Ervin Salianji. Berisha entered a collision course with him, initially trying to reject him as a problem and relativize him as a concern. This is the background against which, Salianji, Alimehmeti and a handful of other democrats launched the poltorja 2 movement or the bitter coffee of protest. Formally, what they had in common was dissatisfaction with the status of the stepmother's son, in the house of father Saliu. Officially, the declared goal was to rewrite the rules of career within the DP. Where a core of names atrophied by time and fate have become a fence of love and isolation for Berisha himself. But if in the PS, the weight of power extinguishes, silences and subdues any rebellion, in the DP, thinking differently is heresy. If in his republic of ZeqiLand, Rama can afford to joke around with Zeqi, in Saliu's SalDheu, there is no place beyond Gazi's repentance, Goni's anger, and Jori's restored virginity.

Shrunken by successive losses and human losses, hostage to tradition, betrayals and idolatry, the DP suddenly finds itself in a defensive position in the internal struggle for power, giving a breath of relief to Rama himself, who is caught up in the mess caused by his clashes with the justice system. The atypical former MP Salianji and the delicate doctor Alimehmeti quickly invaded the media and political scene. Not out of surprise, but out of necessity, not so much for merit as for logic, with only two or three names that have public recognition and of course at an inopportune time, the “S & A” coffee bar created and gained attention. Without a clear platform, without a program, tiptoeing like a ballerina towards the heart of the former cardiologist, at least for the moment, they accept Berisha, but promise to be more useful to him, compared to the traditional core of the DP. They transformed with impressive speed into spokesmen for the silent frustration of the opposition.

Under the suspicion that the DP can capitalize on the battle for position with SPAK, in the hope that justice can also be inspired by non-local factors to purge the first, second and third generation of pluralist politicians, they are trying to remember some simple truths: In politics, gifts are enough to make a career. They serve to get a ticket to the parliamentary staff club, but from there, there is no accounting for sewing personal political suits. That is why the reaction in the DP erupted against them. Then the attack on them. That is why the Salijanjis first reminded Babale and then did not forget to imply that his conviction, not counting Fatmir Xhafa, was more joyful for his democratic friends than for his socialist enemies. That is why very soon, if the delicate doctor Alimehmeti continues to see fortunes in coffee cups, the ILDKPI section of the harsh doctor Berisha will mention the bed where he sleeps. The bed in two aristocratic villas on the outskirts of Tirana and the actions on Rama's agenda to divide the opposition. This is the price to be paid. After all, Rama himself entered the DP bed with arrogance and muddy shoes. Success in politics only walks with the boots of sacrifice. Fate only helps in the choice: "Better Saliu than Salianji!".

Even Rama himself once, like Ervin and Ilir with ballerina slippers today, was reminded that he had put the milk bottle in the queue behind Fatos Nano's back. Even then, the late former prime minister was at the peak of his power, while Berisha today is just the next owner in a party that never seems to have its turn to come to power. Of a party that has as its philosophical thought the sincere conviction that the big fart takes the vanity silk pajamas of the insurgents on its neck.