MP Marjana Koçeku has addressed an open letter to Prime Minister Edi Rama, as the protests against the government have entered the 24th day.
In her message, Koçeku states that the citizens are tired of the old politics and that the protests represent a civic awakening to demand change and accountability.
She criticizes Rama and the government for ignoring the demands of the protesters, while emphasizing that the country is facing a deep crisis of confidence in politics.
In the end, the MP calls on the Prime Minister to listen to the voice of the citizens and resign.
A few days ago, she announced her departure from the SP group and declared herself as an independent deputy.
Open letter
Prime Minister Mr. Edi Rama
Mr. Prime Minister,
Today is expected to be the 24th day of a protest of tens of thousands of citizens to gather in the square, revolt and get tired of the indifference, drunkenness and madness of the entire political class of the country.
The people have asked you for a series of points, which you, in addition to avoiding the confrontation and accountability due to you as the head of the state, are unjustly trying to insult, demoralize and denigrate them, even though they are exercising one of their basic constitutional rights: the protest.
The Albanian people have deep feelings of gratitude for the USA and this protest is not opposed to them at all, but to the internal system that has been created over decades on fear, servility and alienation of the Albanian being. A system where, despite the first illusions that were created for me, I did not find myself, at least not as part of a certain party.
This protest, especially since I became a physical part of it, made me understand even more that Albanians, finally, are counting their homeland as their homeland; they are seeing their country as a livable space to which they must return and not as a land from which they must leave. I admire their endurance, it shows that they have served whom!
The Albanian people are trying to pass from childhood to sovereignty to express their will and, after so many seasons, to realize the transition from personal consciousness to collective consciousness, which carries deep and pure within itself the three times of man.
Mr. Prime Minister, the new generation, to which I belong, is not intimidated like the generation of our parents, who often accepted humiliation and were blackmailed by the need to survive. This generation is uncomplicated and demands its energy and freedom in the most manifest way, without the weight or shadow of power.
Entering politics was a decision that took me time to find the courage to take that step, but leaving the formation that you have built and which today is in a deep intoxication of power, required me even more time until I found the courage to do it.
Albanians are tired and are no longer inspired by you, nor by the old political caste. This has led to a deep crisis of legitimacy which can hardly be overcome without consequences or concessions.
The buildings, about which the citizens were never asked, overshadow both the earth and the sky. The deniers and re-deniers of this country have turned them into a mixture without identity and it seems as if they push each other with their elbows. Therefore, rightly, the development that you proclaim is no longer believed.
Contempt for the revolt of ordinary people and causes like that of Rrjolli, Zvrnec and many others in time, have built a edifice of dissatisfaction that is difficult to collapse.
For those wondering why I didn’t speak up sooner, the answer doesn’t take long. The leaders of the group I left behind did not accept different thinking, nor debate, nor moral empathy. They even try by any means to take away even the slightest attempt to be different, or free-thinking.
I am convinced that it is not possible to build secure realities for the future with alienating worldviews. Therefore, it is time to move from the construction of 3D projects to the construction of another worldview, more authentic, which this protest is planting and leading in the best way, a worldview where strangers are not treated better than yours, a mindset that allows Albanians to be masters in their own homes.
The friends of our country have almost never been outsiders, as you are trying to paint them, but they have been mostly insiders, snuggled up, collared and seized by the blindness of power and disconnection from reality.
Mr. Prime Minister, a development is good only when it serves its people and when it keeps them in welfare, without being forced to become immigrants in a foreign land and tourists in their own country. Otherwise, this development becomes violent, if it forces you to forget who you are and who you belong to.
Albanians do not necessarily need foreigners; they need a realism and a development that respects nature, property, our belonging, values and above all a development that does not deny the principle of solidarity with future generations. They need people who represent them with the conscience of tomorrow.
As a deputy, I have seen it closely and I am convinced that even a large part of the political elite no longer trusts you, but the courage to confess and act may beg for a little more time.
People can stick to an ideology to the extent that it guarantees them an individual perspective and a collective security. Today in Albania, both of these are seriously failing.
Day after day, the Albanians in the square and those who support them from afar are giving the message that they are not a banned people and they do not accept to be forgotten. This protest is a raging river that flows on the skin of history and that refuses to be treated as if it is not seen and not felt.
The disagreement between the state and the nation leads to frequent violations of morality, to unprincipled alliances, to blind hedonism and finally to a new peak of evil: the mockery of Albania. And this pokerism that is being done to our country is leading us blindly through the night towards the collision with the iceberg.
You still have time to stop this. Abolish clientelistic and favoring laws, think about the Republic and the Albanian people, who have seen and experienced enough and who now deserve to be respected and protected.
I know that there are many rumors falling inside you, but what I also know is that the prime minister is not the vicegerent of God. If the divine never begs for legitimacy, the prime minister begs for it periodically. And if you want legitimacy restored, then listen to the square. Hear the cry of your people.
It is not the government’s duty to make a person happy, it is his duty to create the conditions for him to be happy. The protesters are neither libertarians nor Jacobins; they are conscientious Albanians who have decided to return to their country, themselves and their dignity.
If I wished you well, I would wish you less power and more nobility. This is only achieved if you perform your last political act: that of resignation.
I know that this decision requires moral sensitivity, political nobility and, above all, patriotism. I wish you to find these virtues as soon as I saw them, so that you can leave the country that the Albanians gave you with dignity. For that, you are still in time.
The square is calling with za eumenidje. It is giving the power the opportunity to establish justice. Therefore, as a member of the Assembly and as a citizen of the Republic of Albania, I call on you to act in the name of the common good; in the name of what it is and not what you think it is; reward the Albanians with your resignation.
In the last messages we exchanged, you told me that I am left alone and without faith, and even the people of the mountains don’t care about me. But I am not afraid to walk alone, I am and will remain Marjana of the mountains, now I have crossed the fence, no return.
Marjana Koceku
