Balla: Weak and malvolent opposition

Balla answered to the questions to the questions of Top Channel’s journalist on Parliament, Rovena Mocka.

TCH – Mr.Balla, with this pace, when do you think the session will be over?

Taulant Balla, Socialist Party – The regulation is very clear. This session will conclude with the voting in the end of the session. The debate has been going on for nine hours and the Democratic Party has used an article of the regulation that doubles the time available for every Parliament Member, since the normal limited time is 10 minutes. As for the laws that need qualified majority, the time is doubled. As never before, all the Democratic Party members have registered the names in the queue of debates.

TCH – Do you think that this strategy is for delaying, or is it the strong opposition that the Democratic Party promised to realize?

Taulant Balla – a strong opposition can be made with short speeches, by not repeating the same speech over and over again. We have been debating since 10:30 and all speeches of the Democratic Party repeated the same expressions, an unrealizable program. The most regrettable thing is that there are former ministers who hope that our program will not achieve the pace that is needed, and hope that we will not be able to guarantee what our people needs, free health care. An Albanian citizen who hopes to have not jobs, no health care and other things like this, cannot be in opposition. This is not an opposition, they are doing nothing concrete.

TCH – Can you predict if this session will continue until tomorrow morning, or will it be interrupted and continue tomorrow?

Taulant Balla – The regulation is clear. The Speaker will interrupt the session in a given time, but tradition has shown that such long debates have not been interrupted. In 23 years the discussion has never been so long. I can remember the Democratic Party launching accusations that the opposition had not enough time to speak, but they had more time than ever for the questions, 36 hours in total. In 2005 the opposition had only half an hour. They asked more time to formulate questions and after four days of postponements they come here and say that they have no questions. When the opposition gives up from this right, these turn into previously prepared discussions that have nothing to do with our program. The opposition needs figures, and we have mentioned figures in all sectors. We have repeated that we will create 300.000 jobs, and the budget configuration too has figures, but we have to wait for the budget before talking about that.

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