Organizer of Rama’s Michigan reception: if I decide to run in Pukë, we’ll see each other on the field

By Fran Gjoka

“Dear friends, comrades, people of my blood and well-wishers! Today I feel the need to write a few words, prompted by the storm of attacks and mudslinging unleashed after Edi Rama’s meeting in Michigan.

There is a stream of mud claiming to speak in the name of the future. And if this is the future, better that it never be!

I am proud to have hosted the Prime Minister of my country. I am equally proud of you, my friends and compatriots, who supported me and stood with me to welcome and see off an Albanian Prime Minister as he deserves.

Some of this noise also comes from a few who, apparently, saw their plans ruined by the mere idea that I might run in Pukë.

Calm down! I have not decided anything yet.

But if I decide, who are you to judge me for wanting to contribute to my birthplace, to Pukë — the blood of my heart?

For Pukë and its people I have contributed even when I was not in politics. I have not forgotten them, and they have not forgotten me.

Whoever thinks they can stop me with mud, insults or intimidation — is DEAD WRONG!

If I decide to run, I will say so myself, publicly and unequivocally. And then I will put at disposal my full family, social and human potential, from America to Pukë.

So spare the mud. Because by trying to dirty others, in the end you only dirty yourselves. Fake addresses, slander and hostility on social media are neither an argument, nor an alternative, and even less the future that Pukë needs.

My path has nothing to do with this banality.

I have built my life with honest work, owing nothing to anyone and expecting no one to tell me which way to go.

And let one thing be clear:

If they have not been able to stop me until today, with mud they have no chance of stopping me tomorrow.

When I decide on my path, you will not learn it from fake addresses. You will hear it from me. And we will see each other on the field.

And after nearly 33 years in emigration, I will soon make public the date of my arrival in the most beautiful country in the world, in my homeland Albania, in my beloved birthplace Pukë!

‘Even if mother gave me a hundred lives, I would give them all to my Pukë.’”