By Baton Haxhiu
The elections have been announced and the battle for Tirana has begun. The minister’s visit gave Veliaj the opportunity to shift the confrontation from corruption charges to a claim of political persecution.
Last night’s televised debates focused at length on what Erion Veliaj says Toni Gogu told him. They discussed the timing of the visit, the friendship, the alleged threat and the minister’s denial. But the central question remained less explained. What is Veliaj seeking to achieve by publishing this letter precisely now, when the elections have been announced and the Socialist Party must prepare for the battle for Tirana?
Veliaj’s version does not convince me. However, distrust of him does not release the minister from the responsibility to explain the visit. A minister must know that ambiguity in a relationship with an imprisoned politician can become part of that politician’s political battle.
The clash has a history that predates this letter. In an earlier piece, I described the competition between Veliaj, Balluku and Ahmetaj as a political race with dossiers, the bill for which the SP is paying. The accusations and proceedings have become part of an internal power struggle, although their veracity must be assessed separately from the political gain each side seeks.
In this competition, weakening one is seen as an opportunity for the other. Meanwhile, the public sees a power that consumes its own people, and people who, as soon as they lose its support, begin to tell the story of power.
But the Rama–Veliaj relationship needs to be recalled in full. Rama publicly opposed Veliaj’s detention. In June, before Tirana’s socialists, he called the imprisonment unjust, while stressing that the decision on release belonged to the judiciary. Therefore, his portrayal today as an opponent who has demanded Veliaj’s imprisonment from the start does not match that public position.
On 26 October, however, Veliaj made an intervention that gave their relationship a different meaning. He congratulated the victory of the Student List in Serbia and described it as a sign that an era was ending. Amid protests in Tirana, the message was also read as a warning to Rama. Veliaj did not explicitly say that Tirana was next, but he left the comparison for the public to complete.
Until then he had sought the solidarity of socialists regarding his situation. Now he was speaking of the end of powers, citing as an example the defeat of a leader who seemed unchallengeable. For Rama, this was a message of distancing from the man he had publicly defended on the issue of detention.
Later came reports of the prime minister’s harsh stance at a meeting with ministers and political leaders of the SP. According to them, Rama went as far as accusing Veliaj of financing the protests, a claim Veliaj denies. Without public evidence, this remains a reported accusation. But if the account of the meeting is accurate, the clash had moved beyond political disagreement.
Within this deteriorated relationship came Gogu’s visit.
Even the timing mattered. On October 30, local elections were decreed for May 9, 2027. On Friday, according to the minister’s statement, the meeting took place. This coincidence does not prove the content of the conversation, but it places the visit in an electoral context. The Socialist Party must choose its candidate for Tirana and explain the history of its mayor.
For Rama, the capital is a test of political authority. It measures his ability to retain support and to propose a figure who can win trust beyond the wear and tear of governing. Losing Tirana would weaken him inside the party as well.
Therefore it is understandable that he seeks a solution for the candidacy and for leadership of the municipality. But this need does not give the government the right to negotiate Veliaj’s political future through the conditions of his detention. If the release from office has been discussed, this must be clearly distinguished from the claim of a threat of prison or other charges.
Gogu has accepted the meeting and denied the messages attributed to him. The 22:30 hour and the threatening phrasing are part of Veliaj’s version. It is hard to believe that a Minister of Justice would use the language described in the letter so openly. But neither the position nor personal character is enough to refute the claim. The circumstances, purpose and participants of the meeting must be clarified.
Gogu’s political mistake lies in the blurring of roles. He explained the visit by institutional duty and by long-standing friendship. Yet he was meeting a figure in conflict with the head of the government to which he belongs. Under these circumstances, friendship required more caution, because it did not remove the weight of the state office.
Mero Baze is right when he calls for separating the duty from friendship and treats the Rama–Veliaj relationship as one between political opponents. But defending Veliaj’s rights does not oblige us to accept his account as the complete truth of the meeting.
The letter has a distinct political construction. Veliaj addresses socialists, maintains his affiliation with the party, and focuses his attack on Rama. In this way he seeks to keep his link with the socialist electorate and to win the attention of those who want the prime minister to leave. The demand “Otherwise leave!” makes this aim clear.
In my reading, he is trying to build a new public identity. Beyond defending himself against corruption charges, he wants to be recognized as the man paying the price for opposing Rama. This gives him the opportunity to also address international audiences through the claim of political persecution. We have no evidence of coordination with them, but this is a possible aim of his communication.
Veliaj knows public deception well and the weight of deception in public appearances. For years he has built a profile of the humiliated victim (look at the small child at the side of the Spouse in the Fier prison), around which close associates follow him with cameras and great emotion. Now his wounded dignity can become the center of a narrative through which he seeks to regain the political space that detention has restricted.
He has little to lose personally. But he may have concluded that maintaining his relationship with Rama no longer offers him a political future. The confrontation, in this case, becomes an opportunity to remain in the game.
Gogu should have anticipated this. The ambiguity of the visit gave Veliaj material for a narrative that the minister can now deny, but he no longer controls it.
The government must keep the boundary clear. Rama may consider Veliaj’s detention unjust and oppose it politically. Veliaj may oppose Rama without losing any right in detention. The suspicion that political stance affects institutional treatment requires an answer with documents. The sequence of events does not prove this link, but it is precisely on this that the claim of persecution is being built.
Meanwhile, the Socialist Party must decide what it will present to the citizens of Tirana: a credible candidacy and a record for which it takes responsibility, or the continuation of a clash between people who only yesterday exercised power together.
Veliaj may hope that, by making himself a cost for Rama, he will make it impossible for him to be bypassed. Rama may think that resolving Veliaj’s case will ease his battle for the capital. But citizens are under no obligation to settle their conflict with a vote.
Here the Veliaj–Balluku–Ahmetaj race shows its heaviest cost. Each may seek to save himself by damaging the other, while the Socialist Party is left with the political responsibility for all of them. A new candidate does not erase this history. He must have the credibility to answer for it and the political freedom not to repeat it.
Rama may win the confrontation with Veliaj and still lose Tirana. Resolving the candidacy within the party does not automatically resolve the relationship with citizens.
If the Socialist Party enters the elections by asking Tirana’s residents to take the side of one socialist against another, it may receive an answer neither of them wants. Citizens may decide not to take the side of either of them anymore.