MP Marjana Koçeku’s statement against the Bajra criminal group, which implied that she had been threatened, brought a reaction from the opposition bloc. The leader of the Democratic Party, Sali Berisha, his MPs, but also representatives of small parties have come to Koçeku’s defense, while Prime Minister Edi Rama has been accused of holding power through ties to crime.
Leader of the Democratic Party Berisha said that Rama is behind the threats that Koçek claims to have received from the Bajri group. Berisha says that Rama only knows the law of the mafia while claiming that even the protesters are being threatened not to go to the demonstrations in front of the prime minister’s office.
“Edi Rama’s threats are reprehensible. The threats made to MP Koçeku are absolutely reprehensible. It shows once again the law of the mafia. It shows that here he has only one law, the law of the mafia. So I repeat my call: everyone, big and small, because there are children and young people there, very nice, because it is peaceful, it is festive, everyone in protest”, said Berisha.
Democratic MP Besart Xhaferri called on Parliament Speaker Niko Peleshi to seek protection for Koçek, while he called on law enforcement agencies to launch investigations.
“I condemn with the greatest force the threats received by the Koçeku family from the criminal groups of Shkodra that we have denounced for years! The political, electoral and economic mafia system that Edi Rama has set up is being exposed with facts day by day! I consider the threat to MP Marjana Koçeku from a criminal group in Shkodra for her decision to abandon the SP parliamentary group unacceptable.
It was never intended that in this country, girls and women would be threatened in the name of the party and the government by organized crime. When this happens to a female MP, do you think Albanian citizens have immunity anymore? I ask the Speaker of the Parliament Niko Peleshi to seek protection for MP Marjana Koçeku and law enforcement agencies to immediately launch an investigation into this threat denounced by colleague Marjana Koçeku. The truth is delayed but it never forgets,” Xhaferri writes.
The same position was held by the Democratic MP for Shkodra, Bardh Spahia, who called on Rama to withdraw from mafia threats.
“Deputy Koçeku, Rama threatened! The gangs are simply the executors of his orders and the main shareholder in the incriminated government. The denunciation of Deputy Koçeku is proving what everyone knows in Shkodra better than anywhere else; the close collaboration of Edi Rama with organized crime to steal citizens’ votes through mafia threats, terrorizing citizens and dirty money from crime. When the deputy is threatened, the scoundrel at the head of the municipality is commanded and ordered, then the question that naturally arises is: in whose hands is Shkodra and Albania today?
And most importantly: how long will we allow it? Condemning with the greatest force such criminal acts against a family member but also a fellow MP, I call on Edi Rama to give up mafia threats. The day of accountability is approaching! I also call on the police, the prosecution and the justice bodies to treat this serious act with urgency, seriousness and maximum transparency. PS. This is the true face of Edi Rama’s Europe”, Spahia wrote.
Even the leader of the PL parliamentary group, Tedi Blushi, said Koçek’s threat is proof of the merging of crime with power.
“The threat against MP Marjana Koçeku, after her departure from the Socialist Party parliamentary group, is not simply a serious event. It is another shocking proof of the merging of crime with power and the degradation of the state into an instrument of pressure and intimidation. If a female MP publicly declares that she has been threatened, what guarantee does the ordinary citizen who dares to raise his voice against Edi Rama’s misrule have for his life and safety? What public order and security can we talk about when even a female MP feels defenseless in the face of mafia-like mechanisms of intimidation?
No one can have any illusions about the existence of a legal state under the government of Edi Rama. Albania is ruled by a regime that has merged the interests of power with those of crime, creating a mafia system that feels so untouchable that it threatens even a member of parliament whose only fault is leaving the parliamentary group of the Socialist Party.
“The public denunciation of MP Marjana Koçeku definitively refutes the propaganda of a state that claims to have won the battle against crime. When a representative running in the elections, from the party that currently rules the country, publicly denounces threats and pressures from criminal structures linked to power, we are dealing with evidence that crime has become an instrument of political and social control,” Blushi wrote.
“Albania cannot be held hostage by criminal groups that have infiltrated state institutions, that influence public decision-making and that, in the eyes of citizens, have taken the country’s governance hostage. Silence in the face of these denunciations would be complicity. We call on SPAK, and all law enforcement agencies to act to guarantee that no one is above the law,” said a reaction from Albania Is Made.
“The public denunciation of MP Koçeku is not only worrying about the political threat by the notorious Bajraj to the family members of the holder of a high institutional position, but also indicative of the way of governance in Albania. On paper, Albania is a parliamentary republic where power originates from the people and, through periodic elections, is delegated to its representatives. However, this is only a formal veil, which has already cracked and highlighted the ugliness of pre-modern political and social relations.
The truth is that under Rama’s rule, Albania increasingly resembles a feudal monarchy, contextualized in the era of social networks. In feudal monarchies, the king is nothing more than the largest feudal lord, whom the other feudal lords scattered throughout the territory recognize as the first among equals. The function of the king in such a regime is not so much to make uncontested decisions, but to mediate between local feudal lords, resolve conflicts between them and symbolically embody the unity of a mode of production and accumulation based on agricultural land,” wrote Arlind Qori.
Through a post on social media, Koçek implied that he had been threatened by the Bajra tribe, whose message was in strong language and warning tones, saying that if they touched his family, he would destroy them. Bajra’s lawyer spoke of an unfounded attack by the MP.