Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has responded to accusations and comments circulating on social media regarding a video recorded during his stay in Basel, Switzerland.
In a lengthy public statement, the head of government categorically denied claims that the trip was financed with state funds, explaining that he was in Switzerland as a private guest of Art Basel, the world-renowned international art fair.
Rama also used the opportunity to address allegations that, according to him, have followed him throughout his political career, stressing that he has never personally benefited from public office.
Rama’s Statement
“A video has apparently been circulating showing someone catching me red-handed drinking water in Basel, Switzerland, supposedly at the expense of the state.
In nearly three decades of public service, I have never traveled privately using taxpayers’ money, and the same applies to my family. During my 13 years as Prime Minister, neither I nor my family have ever taken a vacation abroad funded by the state.
I was in Switzerland as a private guest of Art Basel, the annual exhibition of the world’s most prestigious art galleries, where some of my own artworks have also been displayed. My wife and I traveled there and stayed for a day and a half, as we always do in such cases, entirely at our own expense.
However, this is a good opportunity, at the right moment, to put a clear dot on the ‘i’.
About twenty years ago, when my skin had not yet hardened against the mud of slander and endless accusations, I publicly declared that ‘there is no son of a mother or son of a bitch who can find a single penny in my pocket that was not earned through honest work.’
Today, two decades later, I am no longer the 40-year-old man who had not yet become accustomed to the viciousness and mud-slinging of political life, the man who lost sleep over the burning wounds of slander and criminal accusations.
But I say with pride that the statement I made back then, out of pain and a sense of shame before my fellow citizens and all those who had entrusted me with leading Tirana, remains 100 percent untouched in its substance even today before all those who have entrusted me with leading Albania.
And never forget this: whoever slanders or accuses you without evidence has either done what they accuse you of themselves, or would do it if they were in your position. Jealousy, hatred, or both together make people believe every falsehood that comes out of their mouths.
When I see how the world we live in has increasingly become, thanks to social media, a field where the endless thorns of lies multiply at the speed of a click, while the flowers of truth are often suffocated by those same thorns, my thoughts always turn to the Holy Books, where the slanderer is portrayed as even worse than the murderer.”
