Gjanica's Cancer, World Gas, Lizard, Chameleon/ Rama between nicknames and the promise of a European passport

2025-05-09 22:19:00, Politikë CNA

The full speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama at the end of the electoral campaign for the May 11 elections

Thank you very much! Now I have a question. Are you serious that you want to hear another speech from me now?

Dear Tirana, dear Albania, Albanians and Albanians regardless of religion, region and idea, wherever you are in Albania, Europe and elsewhere in the world,

Socialist and progressive brothers and sisters of Albania, you here, friends and comrades from the sides of Tirana that we, the Socialist Party of Albania, pulled out of the ruins of the stateless anarchy of the 1990s and then reborn as the embodiment of our ambition for a European Albania.

I am grateful to you from the bottom of my heart for your presence in this field, and the entire team of our Tirana returned here, not simply for the closing meeting of another electoral battle, but at the culmination of another 4-year journey of climbing high, towards the top where Albania is in a united Europe.

I do not believe in coincidences. I believe that there is no coincidence in the fact that we are here today on May 9th on Europe Day to say the last word on this journey and then to go together with the overwhelming majority of Albanians, the largest majority ever of Albanians to the ballot boxes and to sign there with each other our great agreement for a European Albania, for Albania in the EU.

When you chose me to lead you here, two decades ago, that peak was unreachable to the eyes of Albanians, while we socialists had collapsed to the ground. Our path to winning the hearts and minds of Albania began from a cold fog of a heavy defeat. It required time, energy, great effort and above all, indomitable character in the face of the strongest fractures.

Gjanica's Cancer, World Gas, Lizard, Chameleon/ Rama between nicknames and

Meanwhile, Tirana became our fortress, where we designed, built, and transformed the city without rest, facing the rudeness and hostile ignorance of our political opponents at every step.

What they didn't do and what they didn't do to us until they took Tirana with the spoils of an incredible robbery. After they all became together with dogs, cats and mice. That overthrow of our epic victory with the 10 votes that gave us all joy, both extraordinary and temporary, was in fact the most difficult test of character that we forged step by step and that humiliating fall was the last test before the unstoppable ascent to the heights of the Socialist Party of Albania.

Two years after that humiliation, our community, our large family, has regained the center of the Albanian political scene, where we have returned to the unstoppable force of Albania's renaissance and where we will stand stronger than ever before after the historic victory on Sunday, May 11, of the Socialist Party of Albania.

Nothing has ever been easy for you and me, and what our opponents will never understand is that they will never be able to beat us if they don't understand why we beat them harder and harder every time.

They say that we can't win with votes and I very much agree with them on this point because to get more votes than us, you have to be better than us, but we know we are not the best, but better than us, the way things are going, I'm afraid they will wait to come out of the maternity ward than in the squares and streets of Albania, forget it.

Even those who are supposedly new arrivals, you have seen them, they do not resemble us, they resemble our long-standing opponents, a bunch of losers. They are far from us, they are far and further away, very far away. While we, arithmetically, will rise again higher, at least 78 mandates.

"This is a bluff", "this is a trick", "this is propaganda" - some said commenting on Kuçi's memorandum and my question is "why isn't it true or at least if it isn't true why isn't it possible?"

Gjanica's Cancer, World Gas, Lizard, Chameleon/ Rama between nicknames and

MANDATES AND NICKNAMES

We have 74 mandates today, don't we? Can anyone tell me where, in which district, why we will lose one of these 74 mandates? In Kukës, if we don't get another one. They have no way of taking away the one we have, don't they? The problem is that arithmetic doesn't allow it, the arithmetic that I learned in the Artistic Lyceum, not the 7x7=6 million or the "50 thousand fell to 60 thousand" one.

In Shkodra we have three mandates out of the 11 that Shkodra has, there is nowhere to go less. Why would we lose another one or maybe "The gray-skinned anti-communist Mayor, Bardh Hadhuca , the one who defeated Benet Beci, two years ago is transforming Shkodra from a place of garbage, thorns and trash collected in three decades of SP governance for Shkodra, into a place worthy of the European vision of the democrats and the status of the capital of the north".

So, I say that with what we have done for Shkodra in two years together with Benet, it is quite normal to claim at least one more mandate, and why all the polls say two.

We continue in Lezha. Three mandates out of 7. In order to lose another one, Lezha must wake up on Sunday with the conviction that the great changes in Lezha, the rebirth of Laç after the earthquake are the merit of the personal poet of the marsh owl, the pink-faced chameleon mayor Gjekmarkaj . This is unlikely to happen, but it is more possible that the "poet chameleon" loses a mandate and we take it. However, I do not consider this to be the minimum, let's see.

In Durrës we have 8 mandates and can lose one only if people finally understand that the real power of change in Durrës is the mayor "yellow wax, Oerd ghinkalla", who has turned Durrës into a construction site on all four sides with the special filling of SHQUP and under the care of his spiritual father the swamp owl. In short, 8 mandates in Durrës are a wall that not even a ball can move, while the sixth brick, the swamp brick, is falling, let's see.

The 9th mandate of Elbasan saved us by a thread 4 years ago. Therefore, if the voters there will not find out until Sunday that Formula 1 will also be brought to Elbasan, the successor of Luciano fake Pavarotti, Ludovik Bey Alizoti , then another plus in Elbasan will easily enter our minimum of May 11. It became two!

Gjanica's Cancer, World Gas, Lizard, Chameleon/ Rama between nicknames and

The same goes for Fier, if the people of Fier don't honor the swamp that saved them from Gjanica's cancer, the Gas of the World there has no chance of stopping the 10th mandate from returning to our home. Did it become three or not?

In Berat, Korça, Gjirokastër, our mandates are not moving. In Vlora, no, no, where can we get the 9th. But again, the 9th of Vlora does not enter the minimum, because our minimums are 100% safe calculations, as was 74 in the previous elections, which resulted in a fixed minimum calculated.

Therefore, the fourth plus that brings us to the minimum 78, we will get in Dibra, where the women, girls, men and boys of Dibra will become for the first time in a pair of political elections a very convincing majority for the Socialist Party of Albania.

Now some of the media barbershop scoundrels, where truths are "shaven and sheared" according to their appetites, interests and their fat brains, as Mayakovsky would call it, say: Rama is calculating with the votes he buys, because according to them, there is no election here as long as Rama's SP wins, but you, me, all of us, the people at the vanguard of this unstoppable electoral army and the spokesmen of this unrivaled governing power, know very well that no one has defeated us, cannot defeat us and will not be able to defeat us as long as we ensure that we have with us the most modern vision and the greatest ambition for Albania, the greatest leadership force and the greatest governing experience, the greatest determination for change and the most inseparable need for change itself. We are the unwavering bearers of Albania's European spirit in Albanian political life, and as long as we remain so, nothing and no one will be able to stop our ascension with Albania in our arms to the European Union.

Some say that I was lucky with the opponents I have, otherwise I would have left in time. Others say that the epochal change that we have brought to Albania, which today can be compared to 12 years ago, as much as day can be compared to night, has been brought about by time.

But what neither the former nor the latter want to understand is that time brings people and people make the change for better or worse. Time has not brought the change that we have brought and will bring until the end, seating Albania as a lady in the drawing room of the gentlemen of the house of the United Europe.

Time has brought us and we have given time the colors of our national flag! Time has brought us and we have given time the voice of the Albanian need for inviolable dignity and undeniable European identity. Time has brought us and we have given time the wings of the thirst for justice and European statehood.

Gjanica's Cancer, World Gas, Lizard, Chameleon/ Rama between nicknames and

Time has brought us and we have given time the hands of care for gender equality and social protection. Time has brought us, and we have given time the feet to climb from one height to another and the pride of being Albanians and sons of Albanians, standing tall on the international stage, as equals among equals, who give trust and respect and claim trust and respect in return.

Thinking of Albania today without us, the Socialist Party of Albania at the forefront of its great works and our effort to climb to the top of 2030, is like thinking of Albania with a swamp-colored flag. It is like hearing the voice of the country with the broken threads of a mentally exhausted, morally depressed and politically hopeless old man, it is like seeing the wings of justice gnawed by swamp rats. It is like cutting off the legs of this state and rolling it back down the "well bucket".

TIRANA

Yes, Tirana! Tirana, hurt by the recent event, did I forget that I did not list it in the list of districts with their mandates, I did not forget, of course. Yes, why then did I leave it out of the above list? Meanwhile, the debate within us regarding the polls, regarding the data from the field, is that in Tirana we will get one or two plus, going from 18 to 20. I did not forget, but I left it alone, because "Tirana eats bread alone". It is not only the capital and the largest district of Albania, by a large margin from the second, but Tirana is also our greatest pride, not simply as its citizens, but as its saviors and transformers who have given this city once drowned in the mud of the swamp, the undeniable charm of Europe.

Do you remember what it was like here where we are gathered today, sitting happily on the greenery? A swamp! Do you remember what it was like when you looked around Tirana? A swamp!

I have seen the birds and the marsh mice appear during these weeks in some unpaved alleys near some overfilled vats to announce the day of the famine for me and for you, and the arrival of the sherbet for them and for their owl. Woe, woe, woe is this place for them.

But I don't have it with them here, I have it with all those tyrants and tyrants with old roots and new branches, in this little America of ours, where there are 1001 things to fix, but there is one big thing not to forget, this city can only be made better by those who brought it back to life and who gave it identity, gave it fame, gave it dignity, that is, us, the Socialist Party of Albania and no one else!

We will make this city richer, more beautiful, more in solidarity with the weakest, safer for the youngest and prouder for all. Only those who cleaned the mud from its face, who removed the boils from its body, who clothed and adorned it, multiplied the value of its citizens' property without rest and multiplied the power of its organism without stopping. This city can be made better only by those who not only love it but also know what beauty is and what the power of beauty is, only those who not only build gardens, schools, gyms, nurseries, playgrounds, parks, flower beds, infrastructure, more than all the others combined in decades, but who in everything they build, bring more Europe to Tirana and to Albania.

Tirana and Tirana, I have a message for you; keep your party memberships and sympathies to yourself, but share Tirana separately, because Tirana eats bread separately, do not confuse Tirana with the party colors, because Tirana belongs to everyone and above all, to all the children of Albania and not only to Albania, but Tirana belongs to the children of Kosovo, Tirana belongs to the Albanian children of Macedonia, Tirana belongs to every child whose first word is ''oh, nan''.

Oh democratic Tirana, how can I? On Sunday you should think more about Albania in the EU than about the unpaved alley of Balli Fahriu's throat or the cauldron of Albana Saliu's gourmet, while to the wavering Tirana I say ; ''you are angry and you have a sword that you cannot find any sign of enforcement, but you should think more about your family's European passport than about the parties with new prospects. All of Tirana should think on Sunday about the blue of Europe and the red and black of Albania, not about the party trenches of one and the other or about the color of the flag of one and the other party, as we Tirana residents from the Dajti mountain say.

And Tirana must trust me with one more thing, that when the day has come that Kamza, who escaped from the swamp, will bring her share of the 19th in a package, then Tirana makes no sense not to pack the 20th, do you understand me or not?

Oh, novice, do you understand me or not?

Gjanica's Cancer, World Gas, Lizard, Chameleon/ Rama between nicknames and

I must tell you that this journey through Albania has been beautiful, it has been peaceful, positive, there has been no major acoustic or visual pollution except for those piles of marsh kelp in the city squares, or their magnificent punches and kicks among themselves. For me, for example, those piles of marsh made me miss Luli.

Do you remember Luli in 2017 when he spread the light of the new republic? This time, instead of my "friend" in beige summer pants, as a singer at the graduation anniversaries, there was the owl with Donald Trump's hat, hunched and wrinkled like that witch at the concert in '36, with Latif who had come to spread the magnificent smoke of magic that would destroy us all, and today we would not be here at all and with the eye of Qim i Çuli, for the magnificent news that would turn the Atlantic Ocean sour, but now the campaign is over and the sovereign, the people with their vote, will enter the field.

We know the sequel, the owl will thank the people for the victory on Sunday evening, then he will alert them about the theft of votes on Monday lunch and will call them to a revolution without return on Tuesday morning. Latifi will leave where he came from. Of course, he will leave richer than he came, because in that pile of unrecyclable waste, he is the only wheel, as the Kosovars say. And Latifi will be forgotten, just like the Trumpist hat that crashed onto the owl's head, making him even funnier than Qimi the bearded man himself, who will fall into the magnificent dilemma; "to shave or not to shave", while we, the Socialist Party of Albania, will receive the 4th mandate, with at least 78 mandates and we will not lose a single day for Albania 2030 in the EU.

We will not waste a single day for Albania with a GDP that we will increase to 35 billion euros in 2030; for Albania with an average salary of at least 1,000 euros from the 848 we have today and with a minimum pension of 200 euros; for a tourist Albania with exemplary high-level investments from north to south, which will make our country a ''blue eye'' in the middle of the Mediterranean that everyone will want to see and from which everyone will want to be seen.

Remember my words and with Tirana the platform of a spectacular collection of modern architecture; for Albania with a reborn military industry and a developed agri-food industry; for Albania with an even higher level of security and national roads, large cities and schools covered entirely with intelligent camera systems; for Albania with a regional health center of excellence in the QSUT complex and with a state-of-the-art hospital in the Durrës area; for Albania with a European medical university and with a new level of environmental protection and waste management; for Albania with even more modern online services, with an even more developed digital education, with developed digital parks and with a much broader digital ecosystem; for Albania with the Blue Corridor and the 8th Corridor in operation, with the large Commercial Port of Durres in operation, with the tourist ports in operation, with all 4 airports in operation and with the railways in construction.

ALBANIA IN THE EU

And I'm stopping without mentioning the entire endless list of tasks that are not an electoral program, but are our plans for governing every sector because it would take me a whole night while I have to conclude this part with the work of all the tasks, for Albania that will close the membership negotiations with the European Union within 2027!

All the rest, what I said or what I didn't say are tasks, while Albania's entry into the EU within this decade is our national mission, it is Albania's European destiny, which has come into our hands and I told you, I don't believe in coincidences. I believe that European destiny has come into our hands and our hand is on the ballot to hold our destiny in our hands and to finally decide our destiny with our own hands.

The hand with 5 fingers has within it the possibility of a proud vote, for a proud Albania in the European family, for a new Albania in a new history. For an Albania that rises to the height of the dreams and hopes of its children, for an Albania towards the end of a journey as long as the very existence of Albanians in the heart of Europe. For an Albania where equality of law turns into the legality of coexistence among Albanians and where European belonging is not only by custom, but also by law, it is not only in the pages of history, but also in the pages of the European passport of every child of Albania.

Great and beautiful Tirana, don't think twice, but become the powerful locomotive of this mission on Sunday, for you, for us, for Albania, and take 20 mandates from your hand for the 2030 summit in the European Union.

Long live the Socialist Party of Albania!

Long live all of you who came here. You listened, you endured, you stayed. I am very grateful to you and long live all the socialists, progressives, women, girls, men, boys of this great family that is not the largest party in Albania, it is the greatest force of Albanians.

In the end, may all the children of Tirana and the children of Albania, of parents with all political beliefs, be blessed, and may their parents be aware that May 11th is first and foremost their children's.

Thank you very much!