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The Chairman of the Democratic Party, Sali Berisha, has shared for the first time details from the 2021 campaign and the last conversation with Lulzim Basha.
Invited to an interview on ‘Opinion’, on TV Klan, Berisha recounted the telephone conversation with Basha, when the latter made the decision not to include him in the Parliamentary Group of the Democratic Party.
Also, the Democratic leader revealed for the first time in the studio that before being placed on the blacklist of the United States of America, he had decided to leave his mandate.
Blendi Fevziu: Why should an Albanian, it may be a dilemma, vote for Sali Berisha, who 11 years ago resigned and said he would leave politics? There are entire generations who have grown up, they have seen you as president and today they say Sali Berisha himself said in 2013 I completed my mission, after 11 years he is coming back again. Why should they vote for you for prime minister?
Sali Berisha: Why after he left? Because Sali Berisha after he left definitively and unequivocally and I was preparing for the next four months to hand over the mandate of the deputy because there is always a time for decisions. What happened? There was a sanction on corrupt lobbying.
Blendi Fevziu: Were you preparing to hand over the mandate?
Sali Berisha: Absolutely yes!
Blendi Fevziu: I had never heard this before?
Sali Berisha: Absolutely yes.
Blendi Fevziu: So even though you were on the list and won the 2021 elections in September, you would not go to parliament, would you hand over the mandate?
Sali Berisha: In 2021, so that the citizens know, after I conducted a 1-year campaign, including in this studio here to convince Albanians about the leader of the DP, Lulzim Basha, we had this debate with each other. I would not run. But since the influence in the DP is high, not running could harm us and if I run, I will run only for this purpose. He asked me to go to Shkodra.
Blendi Fevziu: Have you told Basha that you are willing to not run?
Sali Berisha: Absolutely yes.
Blendi Fevziu: Has Basha always said that you asked him?
Sali Berisha: Let him do what he says. What he says in the morning he does not say at dinner. He has a problem with himself. But I tell you that I was very determined. He proposed that I go to Shkodra. I say no, because we share the campaign and the media will deal with me, they will report my activities to completely ignore you, but I am interested in the DP winning, not Sali Berisha. And I will not campaign. You will not find even a quarter of an hour of Sali Berisha’s campaign in 2021. Kamala Harris ran the campaign, Obama came out on his side. The campaign was broken. The campaign is not broken.
Blendi Fevziu: Is that why you didn’t come out?
Sali Berisha: Of course, for that reason.
Blendi Fevziu: Is that why Mr. Berisha didn’t react when Basha said the ridiculous thesis that I brought Albania into NATO, that I made the National Road, or that I opened the visas? Because I had it here in the studio and I had 4 journalists who started laughing.
Sali Berisha: What was my stance? I told his chief advisor that with this action you made a very big mistake because the journalists will tease him like in a ring. We can’t say things that aren’t true. The best thing was that they brought it to me to see. They also did their analysis. I told him, but you can’t come out with deceptions in front of the Albanians. He came here to the studio and they mercifully held the journalists in a debate with you. I tell Asaf, did you see it? Yes, he said you were right. These were not mine, but I could not protest publicly in the middle of the campaign.
Blendi Fevziu: Had you decided to hand over the mandate?
Sali Berisha: Yes, I would have handed it over.
Blendi Fevziu: Only the non grata declaration forced you to stay?
Sali Berisha: Not only the non grata declaration. When I was declared non grata, what did I tell him? Philip Riker came and said this. I told him that no one else but Albanians can ever make the list of deputies. No other country in the world has helped Albanians on the path to freedom as much as the USA, but they have never done anything to make them the list of deputies because then it is a colony. Therefore, this cannot happen. He comes out, waits for September 9 and announces it under great pressure from the ambassador, etc. I call him and say, look. You have made a completely unfounded decision, but regardless, convene the National Council or the group of deputies or the party Assembly. He replied, “I don’t hold anti-American meetings.” I told him what an anti-American meeting is, a meeting for the rule of law, for the rules, we have a statute, it’s our Constitution. We have to implement the statute. No, no, he said, I don’t hold anti-American meetings. Before Riker came, I had told him. This problem of my sanctioning is a personal problem and the party will not interfere in this matter. I, God help me, am a hottie’s rifle. Later, I found out that it was a hottie who told me what this meant. I told him it means that I have a pen for a rifle and I will fight. I sued Antony Blinken and started with the American media.
