After the public debate with Blendi Fevziu, Prime Minister Edi Rama has chosen today to open another clash, this time with journalist Klodiana Lala, reacting from Dubai through a post on social networks.
The reason was a status posted by the journalist on Facebook, where she raised concerns about the floods in Durrës and the malfunctioning of the Tirana incinerator. Rama reposted the status, accompanying it with a long, ironic and offensive comment, avoiding mentioning the journalist's name, but not labeling her.
According to the prime minister, the problem does not lie with the incinerator or the infrastructure, but with what he calls the “blatant ignorance” of some media voices. In his reaction, Rama writes that “a spokesperson for public opinion” is telling citizens that the Tirana incinerator is to blame for the plastic bottles and bags that are thrown onto the streets of Albania, which then, due to wind and river water, accumulate and block drainage channels or pollute beaches.
The prime minister's irony goes even further, translating this stance as an absurd call to citizens: "Throw your trash wherever you can, because the Tirana incinerator is to blame."
Rama then moves from irony to a direct accusation against a section of the media, which he divides into two categories: journalists who are informed and inform, and those who, according to him, hate, slander and misinform. The latter, the prime minister writes, are increasing "just like the plastic flows", while the public is being "flooded" every day by hatred and misinformation.
But beyond the controversy with the journalist, there remain some fundamental questions that the prime minister has yet to clarify.
What is the real cause of the floods in Durrës?
Did the collector for which the Durrës Prosecutor's Office has launched a criminal investigation work?
Wouldn't it be more reasonable for the head of government to remain silent and wait for the conclusion of this investigation, before spreading irony and insults on social networks?
Also, while the Prime Minister is in Dubai to receive awards and accolades, it remains unclear why he does not find time to go to the field himself to see the situation in Durrës. The Tirana incinerator, about which he speaks so confidently, he cannot see, because it does not physically exist – except in documents, political statements and, as is often said, in Erion Veliaj’s “letters”.
In the end, these fruitless debates with journalists do not show strength, but weakness. They highlight an increasingly nervous prime minister in difficult days for his government. The government and Albania are not to blame for the decline of Blendi Fevziu, nor Klodiana Lala, nor their colleagues.
Perhaps the question to ask is not who speaks in the media, but who bears responsibility when things in a country don't work. And the answer, as always, starts in the head.
