Democratic Party MP Agron Gjekmarkaj delivered a critical speech in Parliament today during discussions on the state budget, describing the budget as ordered by the government's clients and a product of monopoly interests, according to him.

From the Parliament rostrum, Gjekmarkaj accused the government of producing programmed poverty, deculturation of society and a climate where corruption has become normal, while citizens, according to him, are being marginalized and stripped of their dignity. He declared that he would vote against the budget, which he described as a symbol of a model that favors clients of power and harms Albanian families.

Speech in the Assembly
Today we discuss the state budget, the new propaganda fable and the new disappointment of Albanians. This should be the document that is conceived from the needs of citizens. But no. This is a budget ordered by the interests of monopolies. It is a budget that is not born from communities, but from the clients of power. It is a budget that does not build development, but produces social wounds. This is a budget that divides people and regions! This is a budget that unites the beneficiaries at one table!

In this country, poverty is not simply economic poverty.

Poverty is depersonalization, it is an end in itself, it is a means of relativizing the other, it is a relationship of domination.

It is a stripping of human dignity.

When a parent can no longer tell their child that tomorrow will be better, the future fades, the hope and positivity necessary for a normal society are cut off. This is the point when the Homeland kills and expels you.

The Albanian family sees the same injustice and the same disregard from the state every day. The relationship between the state and the individual is devoid of respect, it is inhuman.

Extreme poverty leaves you faceless. It produces only one thought - despair.

And today we have thousands of faceless Albanians in front of their children.

In this reality, the poor become poorer. From their hell, the paradise of power, its arrogance, is built!

Wealth today is distributed not according to merit, but according to proximity to the Government. This proximity is not symbolic of virtue but a map of vices.

The oligarch becomes richer, more arrogant, more arrogant than usual, but also more servile to power!

Because the system works for those who are already rich, destroying the middle class and enlarging the community of the poor!

Public investments are not designed for the country's needs.

They are designed to order.

Where someone has an interest, there investment appears.

So roads that cost five times as much and are poorly built are built where there is the most profit, not where there is the most need.

Schools are generally closed, while where they are opened, it happens that the project brings profit, not where children seek quality education.

Hospitals are modernized only in the narrative, while patients are treated in dire conditions. Oncology remains the locomotive of this drama!

Corruption harms society several times.

The first time he stole public money as an ethical example.

The second time it ruins the quality of any public work like a physical bull.

Roads break down before they are finished.

Public works degrade before they open.

Corruption destroys the shared reality by constructing a common denominator, that of a corrupt country.

He is destroying the moral status of the Albanian MP, incapable of rebelling, incapable of providing solutions, incapable of an honest portrait.

We often hear that SPAK will solve the problem.

SPAK investigates only a small percentage of real corruption.

Because the problem is not just about justice.

The problem is the stimulated mentality.

Respect for honest work is being lost in this country.

The honest person is seen as weak and is not taken as a role model.

While the one who benefits without merit is seen as successful, he creates trends, followers, visibility! He tries to be an educator for our children.

Erich Fromm reminded us that society is sick when it honors profit over integrity.

A major scourge of our society is the deculturation of intellectual elites.

Teachers, lecturers, researchers, and artists are becoming impoverished.

But they are not only impoverished economically.

They become culturally impoverished, gradually losing the opportunity to express themselves, to influence.

They are being stripped of authority.

They are being marginalized and silenced.

Autocratic governments have always had a great ally: deculturation.

Because a society that experiences luxury culture does not react.

A decultured society does not defend itself.

Albert Camus feared for France that if the intelligence was impoverished, it would lead to the most dangerous form of tyranny.

Think of Albania emerging from centuries of Ottomanism, from war and communism, transitional Albania, how close this statement is!

In this climate, another rhetoric emerges.

The Prime Minister says: “I am an artist.”

And it's true.

Because he has built an unusual team of artists.

Artists who do not produce culture, but rather produce facades.

Artists who don't create works, but scenarios.

Artists who don't build institutions, but build illusions.

Artists where one is more creative than the other in inventing new ways of extortion.

Artists who sing like Aristophanes' frogs the song of corruption!

In their ability to transform illegality into normality, they appear as geniuses, worthy of the Nobel Prize!

They are magicians in their talent for masking failure with lies! They shoot flames from their mouths and everywhere!

Thus the monument of corruption was erected.

The monument to the privatized state was erected.

The monument to the triumph of clientelism was erected.

The monument to the liberation of Albania was erected.

This is the sublime art of these artists of power.

The art of driving away Albanians.

The art of making young people invisible.

The art of turning the place into an installation empty of people.

In a poor and decultured society, freedom does not survive.

Freedom does not exist in a country where the majority struggles to make ends meet.

Freedom does not live in a country where culture is silent and intellectuals are impoverished.

This budget is not a state budget.

It is the order budget.

It is a budget of interests.

It is the budget of a philosophy that does not recognize the personality of man, but only recognizes the benefit of depersonalizers!

I don't vote against the numbers.

I vote against the philosophy they represent.

Against programmed poverty.

Against deliberate deculturation.

Against institutionalized corruption.

Against the model that calls the honest insignificant and the unjust successful.

I vote for honest work.

For equal opportunity.

For culture as protection of society.

For the citizen who deserves dignity and not depersonalization.

You have long lost reason, breaking the rules of the democratic game.

You have also lost mercy towards your peers.

Greed has become your home.

You have found peace within it, but it is illusory.

The belly of greed is made of rubber, it only expands, it is not made of marble.

The more you fill yourself with the pit of personal interests, the more the soul of this country and the spirit of the community become empty.

I vote against any budget that sees the state as private property and the citizen as a hostage. I vote against your militant zeal to defend every folly and vileness!

I vote against the thieves, the crooks, and the swindlers who have taken over everything.

I vote against the strong who make Albania weak and I speak to defend the dignity of a Republic that is fading away!