Moderator Edi Manushi told today about his acquaintance with Edi Rama, in working relations, when he was Minister of Culture and Mayor of Tirana.
Speaking to “Top Albania Radio”, Edi Manushi showed how his collaboration with Rama ended, describing him as a difficult and ‘scary’ person.
“Working with Edi Rama was scary. Then how many cell phones had come out and it was scary with messages. Writing at 3 at night, a kind of rhythm that does not fit my lifestyle. I answered in the morning. There he told me our paths do not unite and we no longer work together“, Said Manushi.
Question: There have been some turbulent times in Albania where you had to understand that Edi Rama, when you became his collaborator, was a man who tried to do some things. When I saw your interview in front of him I thought what kind of working relationship could these two have had? You had an institutional task but on the other hand you were talking about a difficult man to the point of institutional madness?
Edi Manushi: This period of Rama’s career was easier than today, because he did not have the burdens and responsibilities of today.
I collaborated with him during the time when he was Minister of Culture, which was the absolute innovation in the Albanian culture of becoming a minister, and a period when he was mayor, and there I cooperated a little. In the second phase then Rama became a statistic man, who would make a state and there were many Illyrian poetic idealistic moments in Rama of that time, this became more difficult than having more responsibilities in the state of course…
Question: In your judgment is he an autocrat and has he gone to those limits that one sometimes does not understand how you see yourself now as a political personality?
Edi Manushi: I know, there are some people who have a more terrifying pace in this country. I have two moments of my life that I would like to understand, that I have one with Edi Rama and one with our Tan.
They were terrifying in texting on cell phones, as cell phones were out at the time and they were working the weeping night. And there I realized that I was not of this kind, I could not answer at night, I had to get up in the morning and answer.
Here Rama clearly told me that ‘our roads could not continue’. He wanted at 3pm ‘what was such a thing’, I was not. I want to say that it is very difficult to cooperate with someone like Edi Rama.
Question: How do you judge him as a politician today, as a head of state, has he gone to those dimensions of autocracy that annoy you or do you think that this is the right leader?
Edi Manushi: I think he has completely lost the quality of his life by taking on a task that few people do in this country. There are signs of autocracy that I see in associates praising and praising him there is a kind of cult, but perhaps a kind of transition that must pass. It bothers me that in this period in our country there is a lot of corruption.
