The party-state denies citizens free elections

It is very sad to say, but Albania on May 14, 2023 failed to hold European-standard local elections, in a campaign dominated by the Socialist-State Party. The symptoms of the party-state were visible years ago, but in the second half of 2022 and the first five months of this year, they increased and focused on only one objective: the deformation of the free will of the citizen in front of the box of voting. The Rama sect in government killed on May 14, through hundreds of camouflaged and open ways, one of the basic rights of citizens - the right to freely choose their representatives in power. Everything in the Rama edifice, in the state structures in the center and in the municipalities, worked only to distort the vote in the election race. The staff of all 60 municipalities and their dependent enterprises, in the hands of the socialists, they were artificially inflated by dozens and hundreds of people who were employed during the second half of 2022 and the first five months of this year. Not only ordinary citizens, but also entrepreneurs who did not think of the ruling sect as the only alternative for their well-being and life with dignity, were left to leave the country. In the last two years, there are 200,000 Albanians who have left Albania, in the overwhelming majority sympathizers and voters of the opposition. The army of thousands of activists and patron-Nazis found shelter and employment in dozens of state-owned joint-stock companies, in central departments and state enterprises in the suburbs, or were framed as "activists of non-governmental organizations", with projects allegedly acquired "with merit" in the AZHBR of Ministry of Agriculture, or in calls for projects, opened with money from the State Budget, in other departments, such as the Ministry of Culture, Education, etc. These thousands of activists and patronages, for days and weeks, knocked with complete and accurate lists on the doors of those families who considered them undecided about the vote, offering them, calmly and persistently, through face-to-face meetings or phone calls, the shameful bargain of employment in the state or cash in hand, instead of a vote. The Rama sect, with the help of representatives of the world of crime and illegal traffic, deformed and practically killed equality before the law, nullifying the basic right of citizens to vote freely. Only in the last month before the May 14 vote, about 300 million euros of traffic circulated in the Albanian economy, proven in a cause-and-effect relationship, with the marked drop in the exchange value of the euro in the foreign exchange market in Albania. This decline, unprecedented in other economies of the region, similar to ours, constitutes the clear and undeniable fact of the use of funds from narcotics and other illegal traffic, for interests and activities of the election campaign, by the narcostate of Rama. As soon as the campaign ended, the euro started to rise. Rama desecrated and destroyed the rule of law, violated every law and code of ethics in the elections, which does not allow the use of the State Budget and Treasury for promises and giving funds before the elections, or programs and promises for a one-year salary increase, precisely less than one months before the election race. The Ministry of Finance and Economy was put in the role of providing money for the mega-promises before and during the campaign, such as the 5,000 ALL bonus for retirees in April 2023, or the one-year program for increasing the average salary in the public administration, benefiting from the budget revenue surplus, due to high inflation. The sect sowed discord in Kurbin, in Vaun e Deja and in many other municipalities, while the phalanxes of the IKMT of Rama are preparing these days after the elections, to take revenge with strikes on business, for those who do not obey the orders and interests of the sect . An unmasking fact about this is the blocking of a hotel in Dhërmi, the hotel of a Union for Victory counter. In addition to the distortion and buying of votes with the above methods, the electoral campaign for the 2023 local elections took place in a marked lack of seriousness and accountability from the sect in the government. The rise of rivalry and comparison in ideas and programs, brought the lack of attention of the citizens to the realization or not, of the governing promises of the socialists, who managed for four years 60 municipalities, with full direction and without the participation of opposition councilors in the municipal councils, local parliaments. Citizens in all 61 communities were given only the opium of the parade of investments made and successes achieved, without mentioning the unfulfilled promises, the financial obligations accumulated from open tenders without securing 20 percent of the fund, the swelling of municipal staffs with activists and patronage, in flagrant violation of every standard of the European Charter of Local Autonomy, abuses of local tenders, nepotism and corruption. The campaign for the May 14, 2023 local elections completely lacked transparency and accountability, two basic elements of a democratic contest. Instead of accountability, the position's meetings with the citizens took the form of a circus and a prank, with the derogatory language of the prime minister and the unethical visual elements of his posters. The misuse of state institutions and the rampant and indiscriminate use of state funds in bonuses and salary increases, to buy votes, has denatured the democratic and open character of our elections, turning them into completely manipulated and occult ones. The language that Rama and his clones used in the campaign to attack political opponents in the elections has become ever more derogatory, arrogant and totally lacking in ethics and seriousness. The irresistible and sick desire to denigrate and despise the opponent at all costs, has led Rama to erode the foundations of the rule of law in Albania,